Where in the world do the biggest problems concentrate?

Extreme poverty is now majority sub-Saharan African — the region holds around 60% of the world's extreme poor, a share that keeps rising as poverty falls almost everywhere else.

About 95% of malaria deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them children under five.

Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia carry the great majority of under-five deaths, though both have fallen sharply since 1990.

Undernourishment concentrates in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with conflict driving acute hunger across parts of the Middle East and the Sahel.

The largest gaps in safe water and sanitation are in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by South Asia.

Learning poverty — being unable to read a simple text by age 10 — reaches its highest levels in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Loneliness is genuinely global and rising — best measured in wealthy regions, but far from confined to them. This is a problem the map can't honestly localize.

Homelessness exists in every region; its forms differ — visible street homelessness in rich cities, informal settlements elsewhere — and the data is patchy, so the map shows presence, not precision.

Forced displacement tracks conflict — the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and, from Venezuela, Latin America — and most refugees are hosted by neighbouring low- and middle-income countries.

Emissions come mostly from wealthy and fast-growing economies, but the sharpest impacts fall on South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and low-lying coastal and Pacific nations that emitted least.

The deadliest air is in South Asia and parts of East Asia and the Middle East, where the world's most polluted cities are clustered.

The widest gaps in economic and political participation are in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia — though every region still has ground to cover.

Industrial animal agriculture is largest by volume in East Asia, North America and Europe, and expanding fastest across Latin America and Asia.

Most avoidable blindness — cataracts and trachoma — is in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where surgery and treatment are scarcest.

Pandemic risk is global by definition — a pathogen anywhere is a threat everywhere — with emergence hotspots where dense human, livestock and wildlife contact overlap.

Most TB is in South and East Asia, with sub-Saharan Africa carrying the heaviest toll relative to population.

The heaviest childhood lead exposure runs across South Asia, Africa and other low- and middle-income regions — from informal battery recycling, adulterated spices and old paint.

Roughly 70% of maternal deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by South Asia; nearly all are preventable with skilled care.

Road-death rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and across low- and middle-income countries, which bear over 90% of the toll with far fewer vehicles.

Most of the world's smokers live in East and South Asia — China alone is about a third — with the epidemic shifting toward lower-income countries as richer ones quit.

About two-thirds of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, concentrated in the east and south of the continent.

NTDs cluster in the tropics — sub-Saharan Africa carries about 40% of the burden, with more across South and Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America.

The largest offline populations are in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — though connectivity is spreading here faster than almost any other trend on this map.

Public-sector corruption scores worst across much of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of Latin America — but grand corruption often routes through the wealthy financial centres that score 'clean'.

Ocean decline is a global-commons problem — warming and acidification are everywhere — while the largest plastic inputs come from fast-growing coastal economies in Asia.