Canada and Mexico vs the US: A Visual Comparison
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So close, and yet so far. Tied together as much by geographic proximity as by NAFTA, Canada, Mexico, and the US are dependent on each other for much of their economic well being. Understanding the differences and similarities between these co-dependent economies can provide you with a compelling picture of how various factors play into a country’s economic status. To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, you might be wondering what the use of a chart without scale or numbers is. But before you decide that we’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole, consider that our infographic is designed to provide a sense of relativity and scale. It’s an at-a-glance view of the most important economic dimensions of the US and our nearest neighbors. In order to help compare and contrast the economic differences, we have simplified the data from the CIA World Factbook. For the exact numbers in any category, check here.
For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com
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35 Comments so far
leave a commentI don’t get this… It is super cluttered, and really besides the eye-candy, what can you really learn from this?
These are interesting and telling graphs, but what is your opinion on this data?
I found it really interesting that the death from AIDS was virtually non-existent in Canada (probably thanks to Universal Health Care) but the suicide rate was way higher than the US
Pretty.
Useless.
Great illustration…
Fascinating. It shows the three countries comparatively and how inter-related they are but clearly points out the strengths and weaknesses.
Sure, the US is richer but most quality of life factors point to Canada where it’s greener, economically more balanced and a greater exporter of energy resources. However, the US military machine is much greater.
I learned that our military could potentially destroy Canada and Mexico with little resistance
Why do the last charts all look like the US is giving Canada and Mexico the finger?
“It’s an at-a-glance view of the most important economic dimensions of the US and our nearest neighbors.” Just a quick overview of how we compare in different catagories. Some people call this statistics. I would say it shows are strengths and weaknesses. For instance, our military seems a little overpowered or maybe we just love nuclear weapons.
well gee oscar, at this point you should probably just give up learning and enjoy some television.
This is very cool and underlines my theory that the US will be rolling tanks into Alberta just as soon as we try and keep a little fresh water and oil for ourselves. Who’s going to stop them?
p.s. Canada has only ever been attacked by one country. Want to guess?
I think that what we can learn from this is that eeuu has big population and a big energy problem, it seems from this graphs that the US consumes and imports a lot of energy and Canada is making a lot of money selling energy to the US. Also that Mexico is not that poor but it’s bleeding emigrants and that the US military is oversized.
You can learn that Canada is the best, bub!
Céline Dion > Cher
What can you learn ???
1-Canada is the greatest country in the Universe.
2-USA stinks big time.
3-Mexicans are nice people and they make excellent food.
Interesting figures. I guess this article will probably not teach you any lessons, but it is interesting to see each country’s respective commodities and how they relate.
I wonder what the U.S. would look like if not counting Alaska?.. Also, I think Canada doesn’t have to worry about military because we’re their big burly brother..
Don’t worry Oscar, this isn’t for you, go back to watching American Idol.
These graphics can relay alot of information very quickly.You need to think critically for some because they are not all per capita. The populations are so different, Should have started with that one I think. Puts things in perspective but it was nice from a economics point of view to see it not per capita for once as these facts are normally presented.
What information does the nuclear weapons graph tell? US has at least 1 in relation to Mexico and Canada? Actual numbers would help.
Found a quite big mistake in there.
They inadvertently switched two graphs: Oil reserves and Literacy rate.
Was to be expected.
Yup David, bring on the infantile comments instead of anything constructive. Now those are good, they make for a good chuckle I guess. American Idol, ha, I love it. But moving on to the topic at hand.
I was pointing out the obvious… these graphs lack depth and information, that’s all I was saying. “Known Mammal Species” What does that even mean? How many species US knows vs Canada or Mexico? how many species exist in each country and are known to science? Seriously this is just superfluous.
A huge graphic with a bunch of graphs like this one is hardly informative. I thought it would have been cool if each of the graphs actually expanded on the information displayed if you clicked on it.
I mean, the graphs don’t even have any figures or scales associated with them. BTW, was this edited after the comments started coming through? It seems that now there’s an explanation about why there aren’t any figures and such other information with a weak link to the cia factbook.
This was enjoyable. The only complaint I have is that some graphs are per capita, and others are not. The choice between per capita or not seems to be arbitrary. For example, I think the military graphs should be per capita.
What about the women? Canada has the best looking women by far. They still look great into their 30s and 40s. By comparison, American women are way too fat, especially after 30. By 40, forget it. Mexican women are usually too short, and kinda fat too.
@oscar, no this was not edited after the comments started coming through. Sorry you missed it the first time. And I’m not sure what’s so weak about the link to the CIA World Factbook? If you really want to see the data, you are welcome to go there and get it. We would’ve linked to the actual page with the data as we did with our similar visual comparison on China vs the US but that would’ve required three separate links which seems a bit unwieldy.
sheesh, i thought this post was pretty interesting, if not incredibly related to personal finance. and compiling the information certainly took time. so i don’t think this was a waste.
if anything, it will get us prepared for the coming north american union!
@Lee Sherman. Got it. yup I must have missed it. And I see how the many links would have been unwieldy. BTW I intended no disrespect to the poster, post, or article, or anything/anybody else. Peace out.
@oscar no worries. Hope you’ll continue to read the blog. Let us know if there’s anything you’d particularly like to see.
Pretty Colors.
Is oil import/export flipping us the bird?
Nice to scroll through and see comparisons between the three countries. to all those who comment “useless” or don’t understand what it all means, perhaps go through it all again slowly, make your own charts or go back to school as it all looks easy to identify. I think this would have taken some time to complie and thanks for the cool chart.
Love it — with the total mismatch in military, the US should invade both Canada and Mexico!
The charts do not reveal relationships between the three countries, as many commenters suggest. It’s a simple comparison, many of which look wildly skewed simply because the U.S. is vastly larger in all respects in the first place. It’s silly, for example, to say “from this it looks like our military is oversized” simply because you’re comparing it to two of your trade neighbors. If you stacked the simple size of our military (ignoring qualitative advantages for the U.S.) up against nations which may actually pose a threat at some time (and please don’t get into “warmongering,” these same nations view the U.S. as a potential opponent) such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea the “oversized” appears diminishes substantially.
These statistics do not tell of trade flows between the three countries. They do not indicate, for example, that (unlike the U.S., as everyone seems keen to ensure that anything remotely negative about Canada is compared favorably against the U.S.) Canada’s economy is largely dependent on exports – which comprise 45% of Canada’s entire GDP – and that the United States buys 80% of those exports. (The U.S. is also responsible for 55% of Canadian imports.)
Similarly, many of these charts are clearly indexes, which do not accurately portray values relative to the size of each country. Yes, clearly there are more HIV and AIDs deaths in the United States. That has nothing to do with Canada having “better health care,” it has to do with the fact that the U.S. population is ten times that of Canada’s, and it has vastly more people with HIV and AIDs in the first place.
However, what most disturbs me is that Mint.com appears to be using PPP GDP in for its GDP comparisons, else Mexico’s GDP would not be listed as larger than Canada’s. PPP GDP has become a wildly overused method which is intended to measure things like normalized costs of living. It is NOT an accurate measure of countries on the international stage. For that, GDP at exchange rates is used. This should be intuitive, but strangely it is not, and PPP GDP is invariably used in the media, or by people with an agenda (for example those who wish to make China’s economy appear twice as large as it actually is), or those who simply do not know better. There is a simple truth that underscores the problem with using PPP GDP in this type of comparison: trade is not conducted in PPP values. China cannot buy everything for 50 cents on the dollar, even though its PPP GDP is twice as large as its EXCHANGE RATE GDP. International trade – exports of goods and services and manufacturing, imports of the same, trade of fundamental commodities, the sale and purchase of energy, the cost of shipping – is conducted at exchange rate values.
Economists are growing increasingly annoyed with the use of PPP GDP, and the CIA world factbook has, unfortunately, contributed to this misuse. At the very minimum, ANY discussion of aggregate and per-capita GDP that utilizes PPP GDP must also include exchange rate GDP.
Per capita figures mixed with totals will confuse – as evidenced by at least some of the above comments.
Murray C: So you think that the lower aids figures in Canada have something to due with universal health care? Brilliant! What of Mexico then?
Ahhh i love the visuals! I am a visual learner so this was very helpful to me. Great article here!