Here are a few visually-rich web applications that allow access to world data that students often ask for. The data comes from CIA Factbook, the World Bank and OECD.
IBM has built an information dashboard based on of some of the data in the CIA World Factbook. Users can display data on a global scale or by individual country. Variables are limited to Population, Population Growth, Infant Mortality, Agricultural GDP, Industry GDP, Services GDP, Total GDP, GDP by Inhabitants and Inflation.
The display of the data is pretty neat. The dashboard allows users three primary ways to view the data via World Map, Treemap or OLAP (bar charts). It features a customizable legend and displays a 3D bar and radar charts on the left-hand side to display neighboring country data. There is also a global ranking scale on the left side.
This is the 2nd edition of the World Factbook Dashboard. For more information, check out IBM’s ILOG Blogger.
World Bank Data Dashboard
Compare the World Factbook Dashboard with the World Bank Data Dashboard. It’s not as flashy but the World Bank provides the bulk of their indicators and also allows users to download the data they’re viewing, display information in different languages and enables more traditional browsing for data items.
OECD eXplorer
The OECD eXplorer does a good job of marrying a flashy interface with comprehensive offerings of their data. There is a lot to play around with on OECD eXplorer and thus a bit of a learning curve; but, once you get the hang of it, customizing the data/visuals, selecting and downloading becomes pretty easy.
Note: I first read about these dashboards at the Information Aesthetics blog.