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China vs. Japan

How China and Japan compare on income per person, population, life expectancy, internet use, electricity, unemployment, inflation, carbon emissions, health spending and college enrollment, each next to the world figure and linked to its chart, where you'll find its source, its date and every country's numbers.

The biggest differences

  • Inflation is 2.5 percentage points higher in Japan (2.7%) than in China (0.2%).
  • The population is 11.4 times as large in China (1.41B people) as in Japan (123M).
  • Health spending per person is 4.8 times as high in Japan ($3,638) as in China ($763).

The two are about the same on the share of people with electricity.

Side by side

Figures are from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), for the newest year most countries have reported; many are estimates, and they are revised as new data comes in. GDP per person is in US dollars at each year's exchange rates, not adjusted for differences in prices, and so is health spending. Two figures are called about the same when GDP, population, emissions or health spending differ by less than 5%, life expectancy by less than a year, unemployment or inflation by less than 1 percentage point, or another share by less than 2 percentage points.

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