Every map in the atlas.

Earth

Relief, oceans, rivers, ice, plates and the shape of the land.

Physical map

The classic atlas view: land coloured by height, from green lowlands to brown highlands and white peaks, with shaded relief and the sea floor.

Satellite view

A cloud-free mosaic of the whole planet as seen from space, stitched together from a year of NASA satellite images.

Day and night

Where the sun is shining at this moment. The line between day and night moves 15° west every hour; on the dark side, city lights come on.

Elevation

Height of the land above sea level. The relief is raised so mountain ranges stand out from the globe.

Ocean depth

The shape of the sea floor: continental shelves, mid-ocean ridges and trenches more than 10 kilometres deep.

Mountain ranges

The great mountain ranges of the world, from the Himalayas and Andes to the Alps, Rockies and Urals.

Highest peaks

Named summits with their height. Everest stands at 8,849 metres; dozens of others pass 7,000.

Deserts

Named deserts of the world. The Sahara alone is about as large as the United States.

Landforms

Plateaus, plains, basins, deltas, peninsulas, salt flats and other named regions of the land.

Continents

The seven continents as they are usually drawn: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

Islands

Named islands and archipelagos, from Greenland, the largest island on Earth, to remote Pacific atolls.

Oceans and seas

The five oceans and every named sea, gulf, bay and strait.

Rivers

The major rivers of the world, drawn flowing. The Nile and the Amazon each run more than 6,400 kilometres.

Lakes and reservoirs

Natural lakes, salt lakes and reservoirs behind dams. The Caspian Sea is the largest lake on Earth.

Glaciers and ice sheets

Permanent ice on land and the floating ice shelves of Antarctica. Together they hold about two thirds of the world’s fresh water.

Tectonic plates

The rigid plates that make up Earth’s outer shell. Where they collide, pull apart or slide past each other, earthquakes and volcanoes follow.

Time zones

The world’s standard time zones, measured from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Daylight saving time is not shown.

Equator, tropics and polar circles

The equator, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the Arctic and Antarctic circles and the International Date Line.

Soils

The most likely soil group everywhere on Earth, from dark fertile chernozems on the steppes to red, weathered ferralsols in the tropics (SoilGrids 2.0, World Reference Base).

Climate

Temperature, rain, seasons, winds, currents and climate zones.

Climate zones

The Köppen–Geiger classification sorts every place by its temperature and rainfall through the year, from tropical rainforest to ice cap. Computed by Orbis from WorldClim normals.

Average temperature

Mean air temperature over the whole year, 1970–2000. Siberia averages below −15 °C; parts of the Sahara pass 30 °C.

Temperature through the year

Average temperature month by month. Watch the northern continents freeze and thaw while the tropics barely change.

Rainfall

Total rain and snow in an average year. The wettest places get more than 10 metres; the driest almost nothing.

Rain through the year

Monthly rainfall. The monsoon sweeps over South Asia in summer and the rain belt of the tropics follows the sun north and south.

Hottest month

Average daily maximum temperature in the warmest month of the year.

Coldest month

Average daily minimum temperature in the coldest month of the year.

Summer–winter difference

How far apart the hottest and coldest months are. Far from the sea, in Siberia, the gap passes 60 °C.

Day–night difference

The average difference between day and night temperatures. Deserts and high plateaus swing the most.

Rain seasonality

How unevenly rain falls through the year. High values mean almost all rain arrives in a short wet season.

Drylands

Aridity: how much rain falls compared with how much water the air could take up. About 40% of the land is dryland. Computed by Orbis from WorldClim (Thornthwaite method).

Frozen months

Number of months with an average temperature below freezing.

Growing season

Number of months warm enough (5 °C or more on average) for most plants to grow.

Prevailing winds

The great wind belts: easterly trade winds near the equator, westerlies in the mid-latitudes and polar easterlies. Shown as a simplified circulation model.

Ocean currents

The major surface currents. Warm currents like the Gulf Stream carry heat towards the poles; cold currents flow back towards the equator.

Sea surface temperature

Temperature of the ocean surface. Warm pools near Indonesia pass 30 °C; polar seas sit near −2 °C.

Ocean temperature through the year

Monthly sea surface temperature for 2024, the warmest year on record for the oceans.

Snow through the year

Monthly snow cover in 2024. In January snow covers almost half of the northern hemisphere’s land.

Sea ice

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice at its March and September extremes in 2025. The Arctic’s September ice has shrunk by about a third since 1979.

Clouds

A global picture of cloud cover stitched together from satellite passes.

Ozone layer

Total ozone in early October 2024. The hole over Antarctica is slowly healing since CFCs were banned under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.

Dust, smoke and haze

Aerosols in the air through 2024: Saharan dust blowing over the Atlantic, smoke from fires, and haze over industrial regions.

Lightning

How often lightning strikes each square kilometre in an average year, measured from space between 1995 and 2013. Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is the world’s lightning capital.

Ocean salinity

How salty the sea surface is, measured by NASA’s SMAP satellite. Evaporation makes the subtropical Atlantic saltiest; big rivers and rain freshen the sea.

Ground temperature

How hot the ground itself gets in the afternoon in January and in July 2024, measured by satellite. Desert surfaces pass 60 °C in summer.

Water vapour

All the water held in the air above each place, as if it fell as rain. Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas and the fuel of storms.

Life

Biomes, forests, grasslands, oceans and the richness of species.

Biomes

Fourteen biomes: large communities of plants and animals shaped by climate, from tropical rainforest to tundra.

Ecoregions

846 ecoregions, each with its own mix of species, from the Sundarbans mangroves to the Namib desert.

Land cover

What covers the ground everywhere on Earth, classified from MODIS satellite images for 2023.

Forests

Where the world’s forests grow: tropical rainforest along the equator, temperate woodland and the vast boreal forest of the north. Forests cover about 31% of the land.

Tropical rainforests

Tropical and subtropical moist forests: the Amazon, the Congo basin and Southeast Asia. They hold more than half of all land species.

Boreal forest

The taiga: the largest land biome, a belt of conifers across Canada, Scandinavia and Russia.

Grasslands and savannas

Open landscapes of grass with scattered trees: the savannas of Africa, the steppes of Asia and the prairies and pampas.

Shrublands

Land dominated by bushes and low woody plants, common at the edges of deserts and in Mediterranean climates.

Wetlands

Permanent marshes, swamps and bogs, such as the Pantanal, the Sudd and the peatlands of Siberia and Canada.

Farmland

Land used to grow crops. Farming covers about 12% of the ice-free land; pasture for animals takes about twice as much.

Cropland intensity

Share of each area planted with crops around the year 2000, from census data and satellites.

Tree height

Average height of the forest canopy, measured by a laser on the International Space Station (GEDI, 2019–2023). The tallest forests pass 40 metres.

Carbon in forests

Above-ground biomass of trees and plants, measured from space by GEDI (2019–2023). About half of this mass is carbon pulled from the air.

Pasture

Share of land used to graze cattle, sheep and goats around the year 2000. Pasture is the largest human use of land.

Urban areas

The built-up footprint of towns and cities, mapped from satellite images.

Plants through the year

How green the land is, month by month in 2024 (NDVI). The northern hemisphere turns green each spring and fades each autumn: the planet breathing.

Ocean plankton

Chlorophyll in the sea, a sign of phytoplankton: tiny algae that make about half of the oxygen on Earth. Rich waters line the coasts and cold upwelling zones.

Mangroves

Salt-tolerant coastal forests of the tropics. Mangroves protect coasts from storms and store several times more carbon per hectare than inland forests.

Coral reefs

Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the sea floor but shelter about a quarter of all marine species. Warming seas are bleaching them.

Amphibian species

Number of frog, toad and salamander species living in each area. The Amazon and the Andes are the world’s richest.

Mammal species

Number of mammal species whose range covers each area. Biodiversity peaks in the tropical forests and mountains of East Africa and the Amazon.

Threatened mammals

Number of mammal species listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN in each area.

Last of the wild

The largest, least-touched natural areas left in each biome, where the human footprint is lowest.

State of nature

How much natural habitat each ecoregion still has, and whether half of it could be protected (the “Nature Needs Half” assessment).

Human-shaped land

Anthromes: the world sorted by how people use and live on the land, from dense settlements to remote wild forest.

Soil moisture

How much water the top metre of soil holds, from NASA’s SMAP satellite (August 2025). Dry soils mean stressed crops and a higher fire risk.

Plant growth

How much carbon plants pull from the air through photosynthesis each day, in mid-July 2025, from NASA’s SMAP carbon model.

National parks

More than 3,000 national parks, from Yellowstone, the first in 1872, to the marine parks of the Pacific.

People

Where we live, how long we live, what we speak and how we connect.

Population

People living in each country. India and China each pass 1.4 billion; together they hold more than a third of humanity.

Where people live

People per square kilometre, from census counts for every district on Earth, 2000 to 2020.

Cities

More than 7,000 cities sized by population. In 1950 there were two cities of ten million people; today there are more than thirty.

Capital cities

The capital of every country and territory.

Earth at night

Lights seen from space at night in 2016. They trace cities, highways, gas flares and fishing fleets, and the places without electricity.

Urbanisation

Share of people who live in towns and cities. Worldwide it passed half in 2007.

Life expectancy

How long a newborn can expect to live. It ranges from the mid-50s to the mid-80s depending on where a child is born.

Children per woman

Average number of children a woman has in her life. Below about 2.1, a population shrinks in the long run unless people move in.

Median age

Half the population is older, half younger. Japan and much of Europe are near 45–50; Niger is under 16.

Population growth

How fast each population is growing or shrinking each year.

Child mortality

Children who die before their fifth birthday, per 1,000 born. The global rate has fallen by more than half since 1990.

Migration

Net migration: people arriving minus people leaving each year.

Languages

The most widely spoken official language of each country. English, French, Arabic and Spanish are each official in dozens of countries.

Internet use

Share of people who used the internet in the last three months. About two thirds of humanity is now online.

Literacy

Share of adults who can read and write.

Safe drinking water

Share of people with safely managed drinking water at home.

World Heritage sites

More than 1,200 places of outstanding value to humanity listed by UNESCO, from Machu Picchu to the Great Barrier Reef.

Human development

The Human Development Index combines health, education and income into one number between 0 and 1.

Life satisfaction

How people rate their own lives on a scale from 0 to 10, from the World Happiness Report.

Years in school

Average years of schooling of people aged 15 to 64.

Obesity

Share of adults with obesity (a BMI of 30 or more).

Women in parliament

Share of seats in national parliaments held by women.

Vaccination

Share of one-year-olds vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3), a common measure of how well health systems reach children.

Hunger

Share of people who do not get enough food to meet their basic energy needs.

Doctors

Medical doctors per 1,000 people.

Mobile phones

Mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people. Many countries have more subscriptions than people.

University

Students in higher education as a share of the age group that would normally be studying.

Economy

Income, trade, farming, food and the minerals we mine.

Economy size

Gross domestic product: the value of everything a country produces in a year, in current US dollars.

Income per person

GDP divided by population. It ranges from a few hundred dollars to more than 100,000 a year.

Income groups

Countries grouped by income per person, following the World Bank classification.

Inequality

The Gini index of income inequality: 0 means everyone has the same income, 100 means one person has everything.

Extreme poverty

Share of people living on less than $3.00 a day (2021 prices), the international extreme poverty line.

Unemployment

Share of people who want to work but have no job.

Tourism

International tourist arrivals per year, before the pandemic. France, Spain and the United States receive the most visitors.

Trade

Exports of goods and services as a share of the economy.

Currencies

Money used in each country. The euro, the US dollar and the two CFA francs are shared by many countries.

Farming in the economy

Agriculture, forestry and fishing as a share of the economy.

Crop yields

Cereal harvest per hectare. Fertiliser, irrigation and better seeds have tripled yields in many countries since 1960.

Coffee

Green coffee beans harvested each year. Brazil grows about a third of the world’s coffee, followed by Vietnam and Indonesia.

Cocoa

Cocoa beans harvested each year. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana together grow about half of the world’s cocoa.

Wheat

Wheat harvested each year. China, India and Russia are the largest growers.

Rice

Rice harvested each year. Nine of every ten tonnes are grown in Asia.

Maize

Maize (corn) harvested each year, the most produced grain on Earth. The United States and China grow more than half of it.

Soybeans

Soybeans harvested each year, mostly for animal feed. Brazil and the United States grow two thirds; expansion in South America drives deforestation.

Palm oil

Palm oil produced each year. Indonesia and Malaysia make more than 80%; plantations have replaced large areas of rainforest.

Sugar cane

Sugar cane harvested each year, used for sugar and ethanol. Brazil and India grow more than half.

Bananas

Bananas harvested each year. India is the largest grower; Ecuador and the Philippines export the most.

Potatoes

Potatoes harvested each year. China and India grow the most.

Cassava

Cassava harvested each year, a staple food for about 800 million people. Nigeria grows the most.

Avocados

Avocados harvested each year. Mexico grows nearly a third of the world’s avocados.

Apples

Apples harvested each year. China grows about half of them.

Oranges

Oranges harvested each year. Brazil grows the most, much of it for juice.

Wine

Wine produced each year. Italy, France and Spain make about half of the world’s wine.

Cattle

Number of cattle. There are about 1.5 billion; more than a quarter live in Brazil and India.

Meat consumption

Meat available to eat per person per year. Diets range from under 10 kg to more than 100 kg.

Fish and seafood eaten

Fish and seafood available to eat per person per year.

Fishing

Wild fish and seafood caught each year. About a third of fish stocks are now fished beyond sustainable levels.

Fish farming

Fish, shellfish and seaweed raised in farms each year. China produces about 60% of the world total.

Lithium

Lithium mined each year, the key metal in batteries for electric cars. Australia, Chile and China mine most of it.

Cobalt

Cobalt mined each year, used in batteries. About three quarters comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Airports

Major airports around the world.

Flight routes

The 6,000 busiest air routes, weighted by how many airlines fly them.

Seaports

Major seaports, the gateways for about 80% of world trade by volume.

Internet cables

The undersea fibre-optic cables that carry almost all intercontinental internet traffic, each drawn in its operator’s colour.

Money sent home

Money that migrants working abroad send home, as a share of the economy. In some countries it passes a quarter of GDP.

Income per person, adjusted for prices

GDP per person adjusted for what money buys in each country (purchasing power parity).

Barley

Barley harvested each year, for animal feed and beer. Russia, Australia and France grow the most.

Rapeseed

Rapeseed (canola) harvested each year, for cooking oil and biodiesel. Canada grows the most.

Sunflower seeds

Sunflower seeds harvested each year. Russia and Ukraine grow about half of the world’s crop.

Cashew nuts

Cashew nuts harvested each year. Côte d’Ivoire and India are the largest growers.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes harvested each year. China grows about a third of them.

Chicken meat

Chicken meat produced each year. Poultry is now the most produced meat in the world.

Graphite

Natural graphite mined each year, the main material in battery anodes. China mines about three quarters of it.

Energy

Every large power plant on Earth and how each country makes electricity.

Power plants

About 35,000 power plants in 167 countries, coloured by fuel and sized by capacity (WRI database, 2021).

Solar farms

Solar power plants recorded up to 2021. Solar is now the fastest-growing source of electricity in history.

Wind farms

Onshore and offshore wind farms recorded up to 2021.

Hydropower

Hydroelectric dams and tidal plants, the largest source of renewable electricity.

Nuclear power plants

Nuclear power stations, which make about a tenth of the world’s electricity with very low emissions.

Coal power plants

Coal-fired power stations, still the largest source of electricity and of CO₂ from energy.

Gas and oil power plants

Power plants that burn natural gas or oil.

Geothermal and bioenergy

Plants that run on heat from the Earth, on wood and crop waste, or on rubbish.

Renewable electricity

Share of electricity from solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy and other renewables.

Low-carbon electricity

Share of electricity from renewables and nuclear combined.

Solar share

Share of electricity from solar panels.

Wind share

Share of electricity from wind turbines.

Hydro share

Share of electricity from hydropower.

Nuclear share

Share of electricity from nuclear power. France leads at about two thirds.

Coal share

Share of electricity from coal.

Gas share

Share of electricity from natural gas.

Fossil electricity

Share of electricity from coal, gas and oil.

Renewables in all energy

Share of all energy used — for heat, transport and power — that comes from renewable sources, including traditional wood fuel.

Energy use per person

Primary energy used per person each year, for heat, transport, industry and electricity.

Access to electricity

Share of people with electricity at home. About 700 million people, most in sub-Saharan Africa, still live without it.

Carbon intensity of electricity

Grams of CO₂ emitted for each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated.

Oil production

Crude oil produced each year, measured as energy. The United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia pump the most.

Gas production

Natural gas produced each year, measured as energy.

Coal production

Coal mined each year, measured as energy. China mines about half of the world’s coal.

Electric cars

Share of new cars sold that are fully electric or plug-in hybrid. Norway passed 90% in 2024.

Fossil fuels in all energy

Share of all primary energy that comes from coal, oil and gas.

Electricity use per person

Electricity generated per person each year.

Change

Emissions, warming, forest loss and the pressure we put on the planet.

CO₂ emissions

Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry each year. China emits the most today; the United States has emitted the most in total.

CO₂ per person

Each person’s share of their country’s CO₂ emissions. The world average is about 4.7 tonnes a year.

Historic CO₂

All CO₂ each country has emitted since 1750. It is the total, not the yearly rate, that sets how much the planet warms.

CO₂ of what we buy

Emissions per person counted where goods are consumed rather than where they are made, so imports count against the buyer.

Methane emissions

Methane from farming, landfill, coal mines and oil and gas. It traps more than 80 times as much heat as CO₂ over 20 years.

Greenhouse gases per person

All greenhouse gases per person, including methane, nitrous oxide and land use, converted to CO₂ equivalents.

Warming

How much warmer or cooler each year was than the 1991–2020 average, country by country, from 1940. Press play to watch the colours turn.

Contribution to warming

How much each country’s emissions of CO₂, methane and nitrous oxide since 1850 have warmed the planet.

Forest cover by country

Share of each country covered by forest, every year since 1990. Suriname and Gabon are more than 90% forest; Egypt and Qatar almost none.

Forest gained and lost

Change in forest cover since 1990, in percentage points of land. Brown countries lost forest; green ones gained it.

Tree cover loss

Trees cleared or burned each year since 2001, from Landsat satellite images. Brazil, Russia and Canada lose the most.

Deforestation

Forest permanently converted to other land use, mostly farmland, per year by decade.

Protected land

Share of each country’s land in national parks and other protected areas. The world agreed in 2022 to protect 30% by 2030.

Protected sea

Share of each country’s waters that are marine protected areas.

Air pollution

Fine particles (PM2.5) in the air we breathe, 2010–2012. The WHO guideline is 5 µg/m³; most people breathe several times more.

Air pollution by country

Average yearly exposure to fine particles for the people of each country.

Nitrogen dioxide

Nitrogen dioxide near the ground, 2010–2012: a gas from car exhausts, power plants and industry that marks busy cities and roads.

Plastic waste

Plastic waste that is not properly collected or treated and can end up in rivers and the sea, per person.

Water stress

Fresh water taken out each year as a share of the renewable supply. Above 100%, a country is drawing down its groundwater.

Fresh water per person

Renewable fresh water from rivers and groundwater available per person each year.

Sea level risk

Share of each country’s people living less than 5 metres above sea level, most exposed to rising seas and storm surges.

Human footprint

How strongly people shape the land: population, roads, farms, lights and buildings combined into one index from 0 to 100.

Urban expansion to 2030

Probability that land will become urban between 2000 and 2030, as cities spread into farmland and forest.

CO₂ from land use

CO₂ released when forests are cleared and land is converted, mostly in the tropics.

Urban heat islands

How much hotter cities are than the countryside around them on summer days, from satellite surface temperatures (2013). Concrete and asphalt can add several degrees.

Carbon intensity of the economy

CO₂ emitted for each dollar of economic output (in 2011 prices, adjusted for purchasing power).

Nitrous oxide emissions

Nitrous oxide, mostly from fertiliser and manure. It traps about 270 times as much heat as CO₂ over a century.

Hazards

Earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, storms, floods and droughts.