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People and politics
When Did Your Country Lose 11 Days?
The Gregorian calendar, driving side, metric units and votes for women, switched country by country.
This is an interactive data study by Dr Tristan Hotham, built from open data. The map runs in your browser: explore it, search for places and switch layers. The write-up explains the method and what the data shows, and the data and code are open for anyone to reuse.
More in People and politics
The Largest City on EarthSix thousand years of the world's biggest city, from Uruk to Jakarta, and how the centre of the urban world wandered.
How the World Is Governed197 systems of government compared on eight features: 12 families, 112 exact systems, and 80 countries with a system no one else shares.
Every Battle in History13,712 battles from 3001 BCE to 2026: the most fought-over places, how war moved across the world, and the bias in the record.
Every Nuclear Test, Mapped2,055 nuclear tests by eight countries since 1945: the 1962 peak, the move underground, and whose land they were on.
The Nobel Brain DrainNobel laureates from birthplace to prize: the US as the great importer, Germany after 1933, Japan's rise and the top universities.
Where the Borders Are Straight19% of the world's land borders are ruler-straight and Africa holds over half of that length, but North America is straighter by share. With the treaties behind the 40 longest lines.