The FRED Blog has looked at the speed of Internet adoption in a few countries: the U.S., China, Korea, Germany, and India. Today, we use World Bank data to widen our view and map Internet use rates around the world. Then we connect those rates to countries’ per capita GDPs.
Our first GeoFRED map identifies the number of Internet users per 100 people in each country. In countries colored blue, over 80% of the population uses the Internet: Liechtenstein is at the top, with a ratio of 99.55%. In countries colored red, under 20% of the population uses the Internet: Eritrea is at the bottom, with a ratio of 1.31%.
Our second map shows inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) per person. In countries colored blue, GDP per person (at 2010 prices) is more than $28,000 per year: Monaco, where the figure is above $186,000, is at the top. In countries colored red, GDP per person is less than $1,600: Burundi, where the figure is $214, is at the bottom.
Consider the examples of Austria, Belgium, Finland, and Germany, which have Internet use rates of 84% to 88% and per capita GDPs of $48,000 to $50,000. Now consider that Cambodia, Honduras, India, and Sudan have Internet use rates of 31% to 32% and per capita GDPs of $1,000 to $2,000.
Comparing the maps reveals the close correspondence between Internet use rates in the population and GDP per capita. Access to the Internet requires investment in physical capital, so its positive correlation with prosperity is pretty much expected. The scatterplot below also illustrates this overall relationship (read from left to right and from bottom to top) between the two variables for the 184 nations and territories during 2017:
To account for their large range of variation, the values of constant GDP per capita are plotted in logarithms. Each dot represents a country and the general shape of the dot cloud indicates a positive relationship between income levels and Internet use: On average, the richer the country, the larger the fraction of its population that is online.
By the way, more countries and territories report their Internet use than their GDP per capita. The production of economic information, much like the provision of internet services, requires investment.
How these maps were created: The original post referenced interactive maps from our now discontinued GeoFRED site. The revised post provides replacement maps from FRED’s new mapping tool. To create FRED maps, go to the data series page in question and look for the green “VIEW MAP” button at the top right of the graph. See this post for instructions to edit a FRED map. Only series with a green map button can be mapped.
Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.
