About & methodology

Has The Most answers one kind of question – which country has the most of something – with the answer first, then the full ranking and everything needed to trust it.

Principles

  • • Primary, credible sources. Figures come from institutions that collect or compile them, such as the World Bank and the CIA World Factbook – never from other rankings or articles.
  • • Every figure has a source and a year. Each ranking names its dataset and series, the year the figures refer to and the date we last read them.
  • • One clear definition per ranking. “Most rainfall” (average precipitation over a country) is not “most rainy days” or “wettest place”; each ranking states exactly what it measures.
  • • Like with like. Where a source has several years, one reference year is used for every country so the ranking compares the same period.
  • • Sovereign countries only. Territories and dependencies (such as Greenland or Puerto Rico) are not ranked, so a ranking of countries is a ranking of countries.
  • • Calculated figures are labelled. Per-person and per-area rankings are calculated by us from the ranking's figures and the World Bank's population and land area, and say so.
  • • Questions without a ranking. A question we have no ranking for (“What airline has the most planes?”) is looked up once with AI-assisted web search, answered only when reliable sources agree, and saved with the sources it used and the date. If they do not agree, the page says there is no reliable answer yet.

Data sources

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