You can view the live version of this chart here. On that page you will be able to roll over each county's square and see the Gini index pop up.
What the chart represents
The data in the chart above come from the World Bank (2007) and the U.N. Development Program.The Gini index is used to measure inequality between rich and poor people in a nation. The Gini-coefficient of inequality is the most
commonly used measure of inequality, according to the World Bank (source). The range is from 0,
which reflects complete equality, to 100, which indicates complete
inequality. Thus the greater the inequality, the higher the number.
In
the chart here, the Gini indexes for 126 countries were used. Another
50 countries were omitted because the Gini index was not available for
those countries. The omitted countries are Angola,
Antigua and Barbuda,
Bahamas,
Bahrain,
Barbados,
Belize,
Bhutan,
Brunei Darussalam,
Cape Verde,
Chad,
Comoros,
Congo,
Congo (Democratic Republic of the),
Cuba,
Cyprus,
Djibouti,
Dominica,
Equatorial Guinea,
Eritrea,
Fiji,
Gabon,
Grenada,
Guyana,
Iceland,
Kuwait,
Lebanon,
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,
Luxembourg,
Maldives,
Malta,
Mauritius,
Myanmar,
Occupied Palestinian Territories,
Oman,
Qatar,
Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
Samoa,
Sao Tome and Principe,
Saudi Arabia,
Seychelles,
Solomon Islands,
Sudan,
Suriname,
Syrian Arab Republic,
Timor-L'Este,
Togo,
Tonga,
United Arab Emirates, and
Vanuatu.
About the data visualization
This style of chart is called a block histogram.
It shows the distribution of numeric values in a dataset. Thus, when
you see a country clumped up with a lot of other countries, it is clear
which countries have a similar condition. When countries are isolated
at either the left (more equality) or right (more inequality), it is
clear that those countries are unusual.
