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The countries with the most billionaires in the world, gathered in a graph with a surprising winner

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Guess, guess: Where do the majority of the world’s billionaires live today? Answer the first thing that comes to mind and without cheating. Probably most of us would say that the United States and the reality is that this was true until very recently, but the map of wealth has changed: China has just snatched the throne and already has 1,110 Chinese billionaires compared to 1,100 Americans, according to the latest Hurun Global list. The most striking thing is not so much this surprise, but the speed at which it has happened: a decade ago, three of those four Chinese billionaires were not even on the list, which gives an idea of ​​the industrial, technological and business panorama of the Asian giant. Of course, the “land of opportunity” thing seems to have changed zip codes. The Hurun Global Rich List 2026 is an annual ranking prepared in China that has been measuring the fortune of the world’s billionaires for 15 years. It is not as popular as Forbes, but it is also one of the great references for quantifying billionaires. Both estimate net worth in dollars based on shares in listed companies, real estate and other assets, but each has its own methodologies, so there may be divergences between the two. The list is not very intuitive to visualize, so Visual Capitalist, through its Voronoi data platform, has prepared this graph that reflects how many billionaires (in dollars) live in each country in the world in 2026. We have already discovered gold and silver, but there is another curious fact: China and the United States alone concentrate more than half of the global billionaire population. To the surprise of few, wealth is concentrated. Beyond statistical curiosity, there are two reasons why it is interesting to know where the rich are concentrated: according to Oxfambillionaires are 4,000 times more likely to reach political office than the average person. Simply put: wealth is concentrated and it also tends to concentrate power. On the other hand, global billionaire wealth grew more than 16% in 2025, three times more than the average of the last five years, according to Oxfam. The rich are getting richer. The countries with the most billionaires in the world After China and the United States, India is at a certain distance but far away from the rest of the European squad, with 308 people. And the old continent already appears, with Germany (171), the United Kingdom (150), Switzerland (114), Russia (105), among others. According to Hurun, China added 287 billionaires compared to the previous year, compared to 130 in the United States and 24 in India, which explains why the list has changed so much. Spain appears in 20th place with 34 billionaires, behind countries of comparable or smaller economic size such as Sweden or Turkey and an abysmal distance from Switzerland, which has 114 and a trick to achieve it despite its small size that it shares with Monaco: favorable taxation. Where billionaires live in 2026. Visual Capitalist Where do these new billionaires come from? Although we already know that Most rich people are born and not made and the Hurun list confirms this, with 144 fourth-generation fortunes, this rise of the new rich has specific origins such as the market or technology. But technology is a very broad sector and the phenomenon that concentrates it is a boom that we have been finding in the soup for some time: artificial intelligence. Thus, there are 114 billionaires who owe their fortune to AI companies, of which 46 are newcomers to the list. Furthermore, there are countries and countries: despite representing 79% of the world’s population, Southern countries only own 31% of global wealth. In wealth there is also migration, but quite concentrated in one country: the United States. Of this 14% of “luxury” migrants there are famous cases such as those of the South African Elon Musk or the Taiwanese Jensen Huang. It is important to remember that a ranking of the number of billionaires is not the same as how rich a state is or the average well-being of the population. On the other hand, the country of residence can sometimes be somewhat ambiguous: some billionaires have dual tax residence or assets distributed internationally and both the geographic allocation criteria and the estimation of their assets may differ from Hurun compared to other sources. In Xataka | Tell me where you are from and I will tell you if the rich in your country were self-made or inherited wealth In Xataka | Where the ultra-rich are growing the most: the graph that proves that Europe is playing something else

the graph showing which countries suffer the most from FIFA schedules

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I don’t know about you, but there are sports broadcasts that I have saved in the calendar of my mobile phone, like the Barcelona Masters Finals of paddle tennis or the Tour de France. There is one that is much longer, more variable and also almost obligatory viewing: the World Cup. Although it is essentially always played on these dates, the venues change and that is sometimes a real chore… if you want to see it live. This 2026 edition is played in the United States, Canada and Mexico and that means it takes up my afternoons, but there are places in Asia and the Middle East where it is literally stealing their sleep: if they want to watch the games live, it is better to leave sleeping for another day. Is the “dream fee” to pay if you like football. When FIFA awarded the 2026 World Cup to North America, it implicitly set prime time in the Eastern time zone of the United States. That is equivalent to between 00:00 and 04:00 in the Maghreb, between 01:00 and 05:00 in Saudi Arabia and between 02:00 and 06:00 in Pakistan. As we have already suffered in our flesh, such as in the last finals of the King’s Cup in Spain, the schedule of the host state is taken into account and the rest of the global audience there manages. That the World Cup headquarters is traveling is a way to publicize football throughout the planet, but also to make a profit from a lucrative business in addition to sports tourism: broadcasts (there is another indirect one in the impressive infrastructures that are built). According to the official FIFA financial report For the 2023-2026 cycle, total income from television rights amounts to $4,264 million. And in that scenario there is a clear winner: Europe is the most valuable individual market with nearly 1.4 billion. It is followed by North America, which exceeds 1,000 million. Both regions concentrate more than 60% of the total, according to SVG Europe with data from the consulting firm Caretta Research. So someone on Reddit has decided to calculate that “Sleep Tax” with the 48 teams participating in the World Cup ordered by the cost of sleep that their fans will accumulate during the group stage. From FIFA match schedulethe IANA time zone database, WikipediaPython and little else. The result is what you see below these lines: The sleep rate of the 2026 World Cup. tohigh12 via Reddit How have you calculated it? This sleep rate assigns a weight to each minute of the game based on which time zone it is in, taking into account the start time in the local time of each team’s fans and using a visualization model that takes into account the start of the game + 120 minutes. Thus, the minutes between 22:00 and midnight are worth 1x, between 0:00 and 02:00 they are worth 2x, between 02:00 and 06:00 they are worth 3x and between 06:00 and 08:00, 1.5x. Those periods in which most people sleep are worth more (although it is a simplification, because maybe I go to bed at 11 p.m. and you at 1 a.m.): the more points, the less you sleep. The final score is obtained by dividing the weighted minutes by 60. An example: a match that starts at 23:00 local time accumulates 3 points: 60 minutes at 1x plus 60 minutes at 2x. It is true that this Sleep Tax method has obvious limitations such as assuming that the fans follow the three group stage matches, it does not distinguish between work days and holidays and that fixed window of 120 minutes may fall short between overtime and the pre-match, but it is a clear, transparent and reproducible methodology. Which country is sleeping the least following its team in the 2026 World Cup The longer the bar, the worse the fans sleep: Their matches fall at late night or early morning hours. Algeria leads the ranking with 18 points and seven countries, including Mexico and Canada, have 0.0: they do not lose a minute of sleep. But this is not something new: without going any further, the last World Cups steal those hours of sleep in other latitudes. Thus, in Brazil 2014 those who paid this most expensive fee were the fans from Asian countries. In Qatar 2022, geographical concentration benefited Europe and Africa, which followed the matches in the evening. Sleep deprivation has real and measurable consequences: executive functions deteriorate if there are lack of hours of rest, something that we pay in decision making, impulse control, behavior or memory, which affects our day-to-day tasks such as driving, working or interacting. In fact, according to the study Sleep Duration and Executive Function in Adultscognitive impairment after a single night of poor sleep is equivalent to having a blood alcohol level comparable to the legal limit for driving. Stringing together a couple of weeks of early morning matches is more than a sacrifice: in a football country that is also excelling in the tournament, it can become a public health problem. Who wins and who loses. Thus, the big dream losers of this edition of the 2026 World Cup are the countries of North Africa and the Middle East: Algeria (18.0), Tunisia (14.5), the Czech Republic and Scotland (12.0), Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Norway and Iraq (11.0). Spain obtains a 6.0, with a match starting at 02:00 peninsular time. The hosts Mexico and Canada, along with Ecuador, Panama and South Korea, score 0.0: they play at schedules completely aligned with their daily lives. In Xataka | Where you can watch the 2026 World Cup depending on the operator you have In Xataka | The good news is that there is a World Cup this summer. The bad news is that the exams are going to be worse Cover | Data is Beautiful

the graph that proves that Europe plays something else

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Today the rich are richer than ever and there are more of them than ever in the history of humanity. However, their distribution throughout the planet is very different from how they did a decade ago because, quite simply, there are countries where the ultra-rich grow more. Only in this last five years, 162,191 new ultra-rich “appeared”, that is, 89 people crossing the economic threshold of 30 million dollars a day (the barrier of high net worth individuals, or HNWI for short). Understanding where money is concentrated is the first step in anticipating investments, influences and geopolitical tensions. The club of the very rich. The graph you see below these lines has been prepared by Visual Capitalist and orders the states of the world according to two parameters: how many new ultra-rich people gain and how fast that club of very rich people grows. Combining the two makes sense: a high number may not be that high in a broad-based country like the United States, and a high percentage increase implies that something new is making people rich there. The data comes from the real estate consultancy and wealth manager Knight Frank through its report “The Wealth Report 2026“, which uses its own economic growth model including variables such as GDP growth, inflation, interest rates or the behavior of financial markets. Where there are more and more rich people. Visual Capitalist Why is it important. In a sentence: because money calls money. Where the ultra-rich live, capital also comes: buyers of luxury properties, investors in startups, investment funds, demand for high-level services… On the other hand, these people who concentrate wealth are also the subject of regulations in order to reduce economic and fiscal inequalities in a kind of tug-of-war of attracting and retaining capital in the face of economic imbalances in welfare economies. The United States is a factory of the rich: It is home to almost 40% of all the world’s rich people with more than 10 million dollars, almost double that of China (second). In the segment of 100 million or more, it also exceeds 40% of the world total. The explanation for this accumulation of wealth lies in a mix of a highly developed stock market, low tax pressure on capital, a mature and solid entrepreneurial ecosystem, and a legal system that firmly protects private property. Between 2021 and 2026, the US has added almost 67,000 new ultra-rich people, triple that of China. It is the largest manufacturer of great fortunes on the planet, notably compared to the second. That economic phenomenon called India. India is the most interesting case on the entire list because it combines speed and scale. In the last five years, its population of ultra-rich grew by 63.4% thanks to technological entrepreneurship, the digitalization of the economy and the development of its capital markets. It is not inherited or extractive wealth: it is wealth created by entrepreneurs and companies. Thus, the Asian giant has already taken bronze after the United States and China and is imposing a ferocious pace: India already has 207 billionaires and by 2031 the projection points to 313, 51% more. It is, in short, the only country that simultaneously appears in the top positions in both percentage growth and absolute volume of new great fortunes, thus becoming the economy with the greatest potential for private wealth creation in the next two decades. Europe is on another roll. Europe grows piano piano and not without internal tensions. Germany, Switzerland and France occupy third, fifth and seventh place respectively in terms of increase in ultra-rich people, but if we look at the speed of growth, they almost disappear from the ranking in favor of unexpected ones like Romania or Greece. The problem is not so much the numbers but the fiscal pressure, and stricter regulation where private property collides head-on with the welfare state. However, within the continent itself there are tremendously unequal policies, from the Swiss tax haven to France and your plan to tax the richest. Those covered: Poland, Qatar, Indonesia and Vietnam. Just a decade ago these countries did not appear in any pool of private wealth, but there is Poland as the outstanding leader in percentage growth of ultra-rich people between 2021 and 2026 with 109.2%, which has meant going from 1,442 to 3,017 individuals. Qatar follows with an increase of 106.9% and then Türkiye, with 93.6%. It is, in any case, double or triple the average. Of course, there is an essential nuance: they start from very small bases, hence in absolute terms they are still small groups compared to Germany or France. In the next five years the ranking is completed with other emerging countries: Indonesia leads the projections with an expected growth of 82%, followed by Saudi Arabia and Poland with 63% each. Just behind, Vietnam with 59%. What do they all have in common? Improve the scenario for private capital: more legal certainty, accelerated industrialization and in the case of Middle Eastern countries, almost zero taxation accompanied by residency programs for large assets. In Xataka | The countries with the highest number of billionaires among their population, brought together in a very revealing graph In Xataka | Seven of the ten largest fortunes in the world in 2026 are due to AI: this illustrative graph makes it very clear Cover | Visual Capitalist

Three decades of innovation in lithium batteries and a 99% drop in price, in an illuminating graph

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The world has been immersed for years in two essential transitions to leave fossil fuels behind: energy and mobility. But for both to be possible, it is an essential requirement that a technology continue to improve and also drop in price: that of batteries, one of the main components of electric cars and the one responsible for storing excess energy in times of energy surpluses, for example in wind and solar energy. And in fact, this is what he has done: In the last 35 years the price of lithium batteries has plummeted 99%. In 1991, a lithium ion battery cost $9,210 per kWh (in constant 2024 dollars). In 2023, that same kilowatt-hour cost $111: we are talking about a drop of almost 99% in almost three decades. To make it tangible, Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado of Our World in Data gives an example applied to car batteries: the battery of a current standard electric car with a range of 350 to 400 kilometers today costs about $5,000. A decade ago the same component would have cost more than $20,000. In 1991, almost $600,000. There is a strategic threshold that we have surpassed recently: 100 dollars/hWh, considered historically the point of economic parity with the internal combustion vehicle, but At the end of 2025 we will already overcome the barrier reaching 84 dollars/kWh. First of all, let’s start with the presentations: the graphics are from Our World in Dataa project of the Global Change Data Lab linked to the University of Oxford. And the primary source is a data series updated by Rupert Way, built on the original work by Ziegler and Trancik and completed with data from BloombergNEF and Avicenne Energy. All data is expressed in constant 2024 dollars. The price of lithium batteries has fallen 99% in 35 years The first graph shows the evolution of the price of lithium ion cells between 1991 and 2024, in constant 2024 dollars per kWh on a logarithmic axis. The line declines continuously and sharply throughout the series of years without any signs of stabilization until ending around $50-60/kWh in 2024. Evolution of the price of lithium ion batteries: 1991 – 2024. Our World in Data The second graph combines price with global accumulated production and uses a double logarithmic scale: it starts from an installed capacity of 130 kWh in 1991 and reaches 3,510 GWh in 2023. That the line remains straight for more than three decades, in two different graphs and with data from different sources, confirms that The price drop is not a coincidence or a streak. It is a stable mathematical pattern that allows you to project where prices will go. This trend is more important than the fall itself. Every time global cumulative production doubles, battery prices have fallen by 19%. Our World in Data This second chart shows that every time global cumulative lithium-ion battery production doubled, the price fell by 19%. That is the learning rate known as Wright’s Law. The learning curve remains stable for more than thirty years, regardless of financial crises, supply problems and even a pandemic. Behind that graph is that enormous jump from the 130 kWh installed in 1991 to 3,510 GWh in 2023. That is 27 million times more capacity in three decades and each doubling along the way led to a 19% reduction in price. With the current rate of installation, these duplications occur in less and less time, which implies that the curve is not going to slow down due to inertia. These graphs do not describe the past: they are a projection of the future. A stable learning rate of 19% per capacity doubling is a planning tool: it helps the industry and its actors to reliably estimate when storage will reach cost thresholds that make the electricity grid viable with high renewable penetration. According to IRENAthe cost of solar energy fell by 90% between 2010 and 2023 following the same logic. That the threshold has fallen below $100/kWh already has consequences: the European Commission estimates that the EU will need between 200 and 600 GWh of storage by 2030 and precisely this trajectory means that Europe will get the bills for its energy transition. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the graphs show the average cell price of the different types of lithium ion batteries, which have very different profiles of cost, life cycles or energy density. That doesn’t appear on the graph. Nor that battery cost is not everythingsince it has associated costs, such as installation or replacement. Likewise, it does not touch on the structural risks of the supply chain: lithium, cobalt or nickel are geographically concentrated and vulnerable to geopolitical tensions, such as warns the International Energy Agency. And although they are becoming cheaper, their weight and volume are still a handicap for some scenarios such as aviation or heavy trucks. In Xataka | The last piece of the renewable puzzle now fits: the price of storage batteries has reached its minimum In Xataka | China dominates the world of renewable energy, but it has an Achilles heel: it depends on the West more than it admits Cover | Our World in data

The oil reserves of the main powers, in a graph that summarizes how well China is doing

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Since the Strait of Hormuz was closed On February 28, after the offensive by the United States and Israel, the world as we know it hangs by a thread: going to a gas station to refuel, catching a flight or simply filling the refrigerator are mundane actions at risk, although at the moment what we have noticed the most is that prices go up and flight cancellations. The threat of running out of oil is getting closer. Oil is not just energy: having oil means having more time in the face of an energy crisis. The question is: how many days can an economy function without a single new barrel entering its borders? Well, it depends on two factors: how much you have stored and how you manage it. A few days ago the United States Energy Information Administration answered that question in the form of graphic for some of the world’s major powers. The result is uncomfortable and summarizes very well that China has done its homework. The EIA analysis shows oil inventories in December 2025, that is, just before the game began. We insist: it is not just the barrels that remain, it is a map that reveals who has room to hold out. That the Strait of Hormuz is closed It doesn’t affect everyone the same.. In March 2026, the United States and other IEA members they agreed a coordinated emergency release of reserves after the closure because approximately 20% of the world’s oil passes through that redoubt of a few kilometers. But the exposure to the shock is totally asymmetrical: while Europe and East Asia import massively from the Persian Gulf, the United States has record domestic production (13.6 million barrels per day) that drastically reduces your dependency. Although China appears at the top as the outstanding leader, paradoxically it is the most exposed in volume, but also the best prepared in reserves: it has room to withstand months of supply cuts. On the other side of the coin is Europe, the most vulnerable to this situation: its reserves are noticeably smaller and its own production is residual. Which countries are most and least prepared for the closure of Hormuz Inventory of crude oil reserves in some specific countries. EIA. December 2025 During 2025, China accumulated an average of 1.1 million barrels per day, reaching almost 1.4 billion barrels. To put it on scale, it is more than triple what the United States stores in its strategic oil reserve (1,397 compared to 413). And it has done so quietly: China does not publish official data on its inventories, so the EIA estimates them by crossing imports, exports and data from third parties such as Vortexa, Kpler and Kayrros. As collects Reuterssince 2024, Chinese national companies add emergency oil to commercial reserves following government instructions. In short: they have a second strategic layer, logistics deliberately designed to endure in situations of blockade, sanctions or conflicts. China has made good use of cheap sanctioned Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil to fill its deposits at bargain prices, according to a report from the US Congressional Committee. Estimated crude oil inventories of China and the United States in December 2025. EIA Although the United States strategic reserve has capacity for 714 million barrels, at the end of last year it barely had just over 400, its lowest level in decades, after large sales in 2022 and 2023. The explanation is that the United States used its reserve to mitigate inflation after the war in Ukraine and has not yet recovered. That is to say, America’s room for maneuver has been reduced and with reserves at 58% and the Strait of Hormuz closed, it is at its lowest levels since the early 1980s, when the SPR was still in the process of filling. If there is a phrase to define the situation of the old continent, it is that Europe is hanging by a thread. OECD Europe held just 179 million barrels in government inventories as of December 2025, a structurally weak figure for a bloc that imports more than 97% of the oil it consumes. That Europe is dependent on oil is not a surprise, but with the closure of Hormuz the need to change this reality is urgent. He underlying problem in Europe is fragmentation: each member state manages its own reserves under the minimum framework of 90 days of demand required by the IEA, but without a common European strategic reserve. So in the face of a severe crisis, the response comes disseminated and not unified. Japan takes bronze, with 263 million barrels accumulated in government reserves. However, what is most striking is its legal architecture: the Petroleum Storage Law Japan forces private industry to maintain 70 days of demand (about 220 million additional barrels) over the government’s 90 days. A public and private double layer system that makes Japan the most robust system per capita. Finally, Japan participates in the international joint storage system: the EIA excludes from its calculation the international joint storage inventories that Japan maintains outside its borders. That is to say, the real figure of Japanese access to crude oil in an emergency scenario is higher than what the graph says. In Xataka | After gasification plants and renewables, Spain has another energy lifeline for Europe: oil refineries In Xataka | The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country Cover | EIA

If the question is whether the rich are born or made, the answer is condensed in a graph that shows that Spain is different

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Globally, the distribution of wealth is not only measured by how much money the richest have, but also by the economic flow and what it is like. the architecture of success that each country has built. The balance between “own merit” and “cradle” defines the identity of an economy: while in some countries they function as innovation laboratories where fortunes emerge from nothing, in others they function as a kind of safe deposit box where heritage is transmitted from generation to generation like a modern noble title. This chart from the German economic data analysis platform DataPulse and is made from Forbes data for June 2025. At that time, the business magazine counted 2,838 billionaires around the world. Forbes ranks each using its own scoring system (Self-Made score), which ranges from 1 to 10 according to the weight of the inheritance versus one’s own merit. The overall result is clear: two out of every three millionaires are millionaires because they “made themselves.” But this statement hides abysmal differences that reflect how economic power works in each society. By the way, a global fact that the graph itself highlights: between 2024 and 2025 the total wealth of all the billionaires in the world grew by 13.4%. According to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025that growth pushed aggregate wealth to an all-time high of $15.8 trillion. Wealth: Self-made vs. inheritances. Data Pulse with data from Forbes Where does the fortune of the world’s richest come from: inheritance or self-made? The upper area of ​​the graph is where those countries are located where it is easier to get rich on your own and is led by Russia and China: both appear with 97% of billionaires self-madethe highest percentage in the world. They may be entrepreneurial countries, but the true differential feature must be found in their history: their respective revolutions of the 20th century They destroyed any inheritable private capital (the Bolshevik in 1917 and the Maoist in 1949). So technically, their fortunes are first generation because they couldn’t be from any other. However, this small print also includes Forbes’ conception of Self-made: In the Russian case, the main oligarchs accumulated their wealth in the 90s by taking advantage of Yeltsin’s savage privatizations. He Harvard’s Wilson Center says it loud and clear: It was one of the largest transfers of public wealth into private hands in modern history. Calling it self-made is at least generous. Although the United States is the country with the most millionaires in number with almost 924 people and according to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025 74% of them are self-made, not the one that appears higher in the graph. The United Kingdom, Canada and Israel stand out there. What they all have in common are economies with developed capital markets, active venture capital ecosystems and legal frameworks that facilitate the creation and scaling of companies. In Germany, France or Spain inheritance rules. The Western European bloc is the area where inherited wealth weighs the most, with Germany as an extreme case: only 25% of its rich people are so because they built their own fortune. Family Capital explains it quite well: the ten largest German assets are all linked to family businesses. There are no great new generation technological fortunes. What there are are “old-fashioned” names, such as the Quandts at BMW, the Albrechts behind Aldi or the Würths: post-war industrial dynasties that have passed down their empires from generation to generation. Spain and France embrace a similar logic: they have legal frameworks that strongly protect intergenerational wealth transmission, scarcity and/or weakness of a technological ecosystem comparable to that which exists in the Anglo-Saxon or Asian ecosystem, and a business culture where family control of capital is considered a value in itself. Just above Germany is Spain, which has second place in the world in percentage of inherited wealth, with 74% of its billionaires in that category and only 26% self-made. Although there is the occasional green shoot of a modernized economy, it is residual: Spanish wealth is historically concentrated in a very small number of families with dominant positions in sectors with little competition. In short, generally In Spain wealth comes from dad. As in Germany, the names in the Spanish state are great classics: the Ortega family with Inditex, the Del Pino with Ferrovial, the March, the Entrecanales or the Lara. They are fortunes built for the most part during the Franco regime or the transition, in a context of little competition, privileged access to credit and close relations with political power. The result is what the graph shows: a country where becoming a billionaire from scratch is statistically almost an anomaly. In Xataka | We thought that millionaires had their fortune rain down from the sky without the slightest effort: Spain is different In Xataka | The “Great Transfer of Wealth” is not only a thing for the rich: demographic change will concentrate wealth among the youngest Cover | DataPulse

If the question is “how did I meet your mother,” this graph reveals how much the answer has changed since 1930

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Allow me an indiscreet question if you have a partner: how did you meet? A quick review around me gives me some answers like “class”, also others like “common friends” and in many cases Tinder would come to the fore. Well, and I also know of some cases of Twitter or even forum sharing. I am a millennial and so is the majority of my environment. If I asked this same question to my mother or if I asked it to my grandmother (if she were alive), I might find the same answers, but the proportions would change. However, for 20 years there has been one way of dating that overwhelmingly prevails over the rest, considering “success” as having a partner: internet wins by a landslide. Although like me you can do that quick review of your environment, there is someone who has done it more and better (statistically speaking): a team from Stanford University has repeated this study titled “How the couples meet and stay together” for several years that, although you can read, James Eagle has turned it into a visual resource to analyze how this modus operandi of flirting has changed over time: a very revealing one minute video. This video covers almost a century of dating habits: from 1930 to 2024 and it includes classic options such as friends, family, in a bar, at work, neighbors, at university or school, at church and of course, on the internet. Obviously, in the 1930s and subsequent decades, the Online option was a huge zero. But be careful because in 1981 it started timidly with 0.01%. In the 30s, the best way to flirt was for your cousin to introduce you to your future partner (followed by friends and school): the family as a matchmaker which lasted until 1944, at which time it was superseded by Friendships. As leisure options begin to become popular and women enter the workforce, we see how “at work” or “in a bar” gain ground until they are able to share the podium with your friends back in the 80s. How the democratization of the internet changed dating The 90s is a critical moment: online begins a meteoric rise that consolidates it as the most infallible method to find a partner in 2011, displacing those eternal friendships that have been helping us flirt since time immemorial. As striking as the rise and total consolidation of the internet is the drastic fall of all other options: in the last 10 years we have gone from only friendships holding the type with a 20% share to that in 2024, the year of the end of video, flirting online is consolidated as the quintessential method with more than 60% of the pie. Being introduced to your partner by your colleagues happens in only one in 10 cases, something that makes sense in an increasingly individualistic society, which complicates even making new friends. If you are a single person, it is clear that apps are the place to find dates, according to this study. However, dating apps are no longer as convincing, especially to new generations: this Evenbrite report dating back to 2024 reveals how Gen Z and millennials are starting to get tired of the format. Because although they continue to flirt online, it’s not like before: They prefer to ask for Instagram than to ask for a date by Tinder. Fear of “public failure” is killing traditional flirting. However, the Internet as a dating method remains stronger than ever: because before apps existed, we were already dating in the most unexpected places. Without going any further, in the mythical Terra chat. In Xataka | Tinder has understood something uncomfortable: young people are alone and no longer want to flirt like before In Xataka | The world is experiencing a matchmaking crisis. 5,000 students and an algorithm are experimenting to fix it Cover | James Eagle

China’s brutal dominance in rare earth production in the last 30 years, in a revealing graph

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There are few strategic natural resources as important as gas, gold or oil, but there is one that is less known and that is decisive in practically any industry and therefore, also in geopolitics: the rare earthwhich are neither earths nor rare (in fact, they are a list of 17 metals). The state that has enough rare earths in its territory and the capacity to extract them will have much to gain to become a power. Well, if you can cough China, the absolute leader in rare earths so much in reserves as in production. A picture is worth a thousand words. But today the power of China is discussed is one thing and another if the Asian giant started by winning the game. Spoiler: no. The United States Geological Survey It has a very complete database where to visualize production by country from 1994 to the present (among other information), but more than a table, it is better seen with images. Thus, at a glance you can see its beastly hegemony in this chart from Visual Capitalist from 1994 to 2024. 30 years of rare earth production. Visual Capitalist An animation still counts more. The Visual Capitalist illustration shows Chinese superiority, but the evolution of rare earth production by country is better seen with an animation showing its meteoric rise because yes, the global rare earth industry has been profoundly transformed in the last 30 years. In just three decades, China has gone from having a 47% quota to almost 70% of the 400,000 metric tons produced today (by the end of 2024). Or what is the same, going from manufacturing 31,000 metric tons to 270,000 metric tons, something that can be seen in this animation by Global Times and Valiant Panda: Tap to see the animation. Production by country of rare earths from 1994 to 2024, Global Times How America Lost Control. It’s worth stopping the animation at the beginning, because in the 90s the United States was the world’s largest producer of rare earths and Mountain Pass was its main plant for obtaining them. Its average extraction was around 20,000 – 22,000 tons. And then, in 1997, came the Mountain Pass environmental disaster: a burst pipe in the eponymous mine that contaminated the Movaje Desert with toxic radioactive waste. Between the disaster and the subsequent lawsuits, production suddenly fell to 5,000 tons between 1998 and 2002. It would then fall to 0 in the 2000s. It would be in the 2010s when it began to recover: now the United States is around 46,000 metric tons. As Rocío Jurado sang, now it’s too late, lady: it was also in the 90s when China went into steamroller mode. The unstoppable rise of China. That China has come to dominate world production hides several keys. The first, the ability of its suppliers to offer lower prices Thanks to state aid, laxer environmental standards and cheaper labor made possible costs that the West could not cope with. China had the resources, but its victory came because it was able to build an entire industry while the rest of the world watched. Producing the raw mineral is only the first step, then it must be separated to achieve a high degree of purity (between 95 and 99%, depending on the application) in a complex, expensive hydrometallurgical process that, as we have seen, leaves radioactive waste along the way. Where it still dominates more: refining. Because although China has a share of almost 70% of world production, its dominance is even more overwhelming in refining: it produces around 90% of world refining. In fact, other countries such as Australia or the United States extract minerals, they turn to China for refining. If there is no refining industry at the level of extraction, there is no sovereignty. Other faces. Trump wants to step on the accelerator of national mining and expedite permits, the EU also seeks its strategic sovereignty with laws such as the Critical Raw Materials law and its application in places like Per Geijer’s Swedish megamine. We have already talked about Australia, which at least until this year It will depend on China for refining those 16,000 metric tons that have been around in recent years, but there are other countries that have joined the race. But while the Global Times animation focuses on great powers, the Visual Capitalist graph reveals new players in the industry such as Myanmar, Thailand or Nigeria, especially focused on more scarce and valuable elements. However, their supply chains are unstable and have their own regulatory and geopolitical risks. In Xataka | The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country In Xataka | Europe seeks its sovereignty in rare earths and knows how to achieve it the fast way: with a supermine in Sweden

The countries with the highest number of billionaires among their population, brought together in a very revealing graph

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The great fortunes they are not distributed uniformly across the planet. A few countries concentrate the majority of the world’s billionaires, while others barely contribute names to that exclusive club. The geographical distribution of extreme wealth leaves us with a snapshot that gives clues about which countries or tax policies encourage capital accumulation and they are the perfect breeding ground for generating wealth. In 2025, the wealth gap between the average population and the great fortunes has skyrocketed, but it has also left evidence of this difference between countries. The comparative graph prepared by Visual Capitalist allows you to compare this distribution in a very visual and direct way. The graph is powered by data provided by the study’Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025‘ prepared by UBS and the consulting firm PwC, in which an annual record of the number of billionaires is maintained. That is, people with assets exceeding one billion dollars at the beginning of the year. A billionaire factory To no one’s surprise, the US dominates by a wide margin the world ranking of countries according to the number of billionaires. The country hosts 924 people with a net worth of over a billion dollars, a figure that practically doubles that of the second-ranked player. This concentration also translates into a increase in joint wealthsince the sum of the US fortunes reaches a total of about 6.9 trillion dollars. China is in second place with 470 billionaires among its population. However, despite accounting for almost 50% of the billionaires in the US, their combined wealth is much lower, being close to 1.8 trillion dollars. That is to say, we only have half as many millionaires as the US, their combined assets are almost four times less. Third place on the list of countries with the most billionaires is occupied by India with 188 people with assets exceeding one billion dollars. Again, the comparison between India and China reveals a asynchronous growth between the number of millionaires and their total assets, with a combined capital of 888,000 million dollars. That is, with one third of China’s millionaires, the sum of the assets of the Indian magnates It is half of its Chinese counterparts. This reveals that a good number of Chinese millionaires have managed to overcome the billion-dollar barrier, but the accumulation of wealth from these great fortunes is not as pronounced as in other countries such as the US or India. The European map of billionaires Europe presents a internal distribution marked by notable differences between countries. According to data from the UBS report, Germany tops the European list with 156 billionairesbeing the main country on the continent in this aspect. Their combined fortune amounts to 692 billion dollars, which places them in a position alienated from the proportions of the United States or India. Common names also appear in the list in the lists of countries with millionaire populations, What are the United Kingdom like?which occupies fifth place with 91 billionairesor Switzerland with 84 great fortunes. In the following ranks are countries like Italy, which with 61 billionaires occupies the eighth position in number of great fortunes. France is also among the countries with outstanding figures, although well below these three leaders as it occupies thirteenth position in the ranking. In these cases, the harsh sales crisis in the Chinese and Asian markets for luxury products have seriously affected the balance sheets of exclusive brands like LVMH or Ferrariwhose owners are located as standard bearers of those great fortunes. The distribution of fortunes makes it clear that, even within Europethe concentration of billionaires tends to cluster in industrialized economies or with fiscal policies very oriented to capital returns. Spain takes positions Spain is not among the European countries with more billionairesalthough it has experienced recent growth in that select group. According to UBS data for 2025, the total number of Spanish billionaires who exceed the billion-dollar threshold It is 32 people. This figure places Spain as the seventeenth country with the most billionaires behind countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom or Italy in the continental ranking. The total combined wealth of the Spanish billionaires reaches $213.1 billion (about 182,602 million euros) in 2025, with an increase of 21.5% compared to previous years. However, in the Spanish case, the concentration of assets is not uniform, there is one figure that monopolizes a good part of that total assets: Amancio Ortega. In Xataka | Seven of the ten largest fortunes in the world in 2026 are due to AI: this illustrative graph makes it very clear Image | Visual Capitalist

The jobs that will grow the fastest in the next decade, in a revealing graph about the future

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Knowing which professions are going to be the most in demand is always a good idea: either because you are in the academic period and want to better outline what to study or because you want a professional change or specialize. Of course, if it is also accompanied by the best conditions. The winning combo: demand and wages. Every era has its challenges, but undoubtedly the emergence of AI generates more uncertainty: from its usurpation of junior positionsnow you can program without knowing how to program and translators already live with the sword of Damocles on. Whichever phase you’re in, this graph of data on the fastest-growing jobs through 2034 is quite revealing in terms of bringing together both demand and salary range. The graphic is provided by Visual Capitalistwhich in turn uses information from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics collected by USAFactssomething to especially take into account due to the issue of salaries: Spain is not exactly in the United States in the rankings of salary from all countries in the world. What’s more, it is not even in the high area in the salaries of the states of the European Union. Care at the center. If there is an area that stands out in the coming years, it is those related to care, with home care and personal care assistants increasing abysmally compared to the rest by 740,000 new positions until 2034. A little further down, health classics such as medical and health area managers with almost 143,000 more positions and nursing, which both in internships and already qualified exceed 260,000 positions. Of course, this increase in auxiliaries does not go hand in hand with a huge salary: it is well below what can be achieved in nursing and medicine in particular, and the list in general. Technology is balance. If you are looking for a profession with demand and a good salary, the technology sector meets both requirements. The job that appears at the top of the graph is software developers, which will increase by 268,000 positions and will have an average salary of $133,000 (we insist, in the United States). A little further down, those responsible for computer and information systems, with just over 100,000 new positions between now and 2034. The jobs that will grow the most until 2034. Visual Capitalist Money, money, money. If you are looking for the positions with the best remuneration, a no-brainer: managers, specifically those in computer systems, which increase by 100,000 jobs and have an average salary of $171,000. However, in general the payrolls of data scientists, software developers, IT and financial systems managers, financial directors and nursing specializations stand out. Beyond the numbers. Leaving aside salary differences, there are readings of the figures and the graph that cross borders. As the population ages, the need for care of all kinds inevitably increases, whether in residences or at home. On the other hand, it is true that AI is already affecting the IT sector: big tech companies are already slowing down hiring and there have been layoffsbut also that it will take someone who knows how everything works to implement it in different industries. In fact, one of the most in-demand profiles is AI engineering: it has increased by 278.5% since its lowest point in 2023 and currently has 24,957 vacancies open, according to data by TrueUp. In Xataka | What salaries are like in Europe, explained in a revealing graph In Xataka | The main companies in each province of Spain, on an interactive map that says a lot about the country’s economy Cover | Visual Capitalist

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