NationsHelm combines public indicators, derived scoring, and curated estimates. Every metric is clearly labeled as live, derived, or curated so it's always clear where a number came from. Read the full methodology →

Live dataDerived scoreCurated estimate

Identity · Wikidata

Names, parties, term dates & photos

Pulled live via SPARQL from each nation's head-of-state / head-of-government property on Wikidata, cross-referenced with Wikimedia Commons for photos. Refreshed by re-running the fetch script.

Performance · World Bank

Governance, Economy, Integrity, Vision, Politics & Defense

Blended with the World Bank Indicators API — Worldwide Governance Indicators (control of corruption, regulatory quality, voice & accountability, government effectiveness) plus macro data (GDP growth, inflation, military expenditure). Full historical series back to 1990 available in the Historical Trends panel.

Ideology · Global Party Survey

Political Position

Expert-coded left-right score for the governing party, from the 163-country Global Party Survey (Norris et al.). Matched for about half of all leaders; the rest stay as a curated placeholder until a match is found.

Traits · Mixed sources

All six leader traits

Technocrat+ is verified against each leader's real occupation history on Wikidata (economist, banker, central bank governor). Populist+ comes from Team Populism's speech-coded rhetoric scores (Global Populism Database). Crisis Hero+ is derived from the World Bank GDP series for leaders whose tenures overlapped a global shock — identical to the Crisis Management stat — and stays as a curated placeholder when that data isn't available. Reformer+, Coalition Master+, and Strongman+ are manually curated from biographical and governance research; no global dataset covers them yet.

Derived · World Bank GDP series

Crisis Management & Luck

For leaders whose tenure overlapped a known global shock (2020 COVID, 2022 inflation/energy crisis), Crisis Management compares their own nation's GDP growth against its pre-shock baseline, and Luck reflects how severe that shock was worldwide — independent of their response. No shock on their watch defaults to a flat, fortunate baseline.

Markets · Massive (Polygon)

Equity, currency & commodity pulse

End-of-day price data via Massive's API (formerly Polygon.io). Country equity exposure is proxied through ETFs where direct coverage is available; currency pressure tracks USD/local forex pairs; commodity tailwind weights each country's resource exposures against commodity ETF moves. A global risk regime signal is derived from the yield curve spread, broad equities, oil, and gold together. Refreshed daily via cron — up to 90 days of daily history visible in the Market Pulse card.

Fiscal · IMF World Economic Outlook

Fiscal Balance (Deficit / Surplus)

General Government Net Lending/Borrowing (% of GDP) from the IMF DataMapper API (indicator GGXCNL_NGDP). Updated semi-annually from the WEO release; covers ~190 countries with data back to 1980. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Fiscal & Labour.

Labour · ILO ILOSTAT

Median Wage

Median nominal monthly earnings in USD PPP from the ILO Global Wage Report dataset. Annual frequency, ~100+ countries. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Fiscal & Labour.

Governance · Transparency International

Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)

Annual CPI score (0–100, higher = less corrupt) from Transparency International, covering ~180 countries. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Social & Governance.

Innovation · WIPO

Patents per Million

Resident patent applications per million population from the WIPO IP Statistics Data Center. Annual, global coverage. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Innovation.

Education · UNESCO UIS

University Graduation Rate

Gross graduation ratio at tertiary level (ISCED 6–8) from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Annual, broader coverage than OECD alone. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Social & Governance.

AI · Oxford Insights

AI Readiness Index

Annual AI Readiness score from the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, covering ~193 countries. Visible in the Historical Trends panel under Innovation.

Popularity · Survey data

Domestic Approval, Trust Proxy & International Confidence

Three signals per leader, drawn from four independent survey programmes. Domestic Approval (direct job-performance poll, highest priority): Executive Approval Database 3.0 covers ~107 countries globally (Approval_Smoothed series, executiveapproval.org); Afrobarometer Round 9 variable Q47A covers 39 African countries (2021–2022), measuring % Approve + Strongly approve; Arab Barometer Wave VIII variable Q102 covers 16 MENA countries (2023–2024), measuring % Very good + Good government performance. Wave IX (Sep 2025–May 2026) will replace VIII when released. Trust Proxy (used as fallback when no direct approval exists): Afrobarometer R9 Q37A trust-in-president scale (0–3, normalised to 0–100); Arab Barometer VIII Q211C (% A great deal + Quite a lot). International Confidence: Pew Research Center Spring Global Attitudes survey — latest released microdata is Spring 2025 (pewresearch.org/global/datasets); not yet loaded; will cover ~10 major world leaders when added.

Safety · World Bank / UNODC

Violent Crime Index

Intentional homicide rate (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5) sourced from UNODC via the World Bank API, converted to a 10–90 crime index — lower = safer. ~130 countries; shown alongside the raw homicide rate in the Safety card.

Education · World Bank HCI

PISA-Equivalent Learning Outcomes

Harmonized Learning Outcomes (HD.HCI.HLOS) from the World Bank Human Capital Index — a PISA-equivalent scale (300–600) that blends national assessments to cover ~150 countries, well beyond the ~80 that participate in PISA directly.

Finance · World Bank Global Findex

Digital Financial Inclusion

Account ownership at a financial institution or mobile-money provider (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), from the World Bank Global Findex survey. Published every few years; covers ~140 countries and serves as a direct measure of digital services adoption.

Governance · World Bank B-READY

Dispute Resolution Score & Ease of Resolving Disputes

Two metrics from the World Bank Business Ready (B-READY) 2025 report, Dispute Resolution topic: Dispute Resolution Overall (IC.BRE.DR.OS) and Pillar 3 — Ease of Resolving a Commercial Dispute (IC.BRE.DR.P3). Covers 84 economies tracked by NationsHelm out of 101 in the 2025 edition. Scored 0–100; refreshed annually when WB publishes a new B-READY edition (January cron).

Rule of Law · WJP

Rule of Law Index, Regulatory Enforcement & Civil Justice

Three indicators from the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index: the composite Rule of Law Index (overall), Factor 6 — Regulatory Enforcement, and Factor 7 — Civil Justice. Scores on 0–1 scale, stored as 0–100. Coverage ~140 countries; published annually (October/November). Refreshed via annual cron once WJP_EXCEL_URL is set in environment variables.

Next: more real sourcesIn progress

• WJP Rule of Law Index — data ingestion pending manual Score Book download (WJP_EXCEL_URL) → Rule of Law Index, Regulatory Enforcement, Civil Justice
• Lowy Institute Global Diplomacy Index (embassy/consulate counts) → Diplomacy

LLM-assisted inferenceComing soon

Closing the gap where no dataset exists

Some stats — Communication, Legacy Score, Talent Development, Legacy — have no global dataset that measures them, for anyone. For these, an LLM will reason over public biographical and news context to produce a grounded estimate, shown with an "LLM-inferred" label so it's never confused with measured data. Until then, they stay as Curated estimate — source planned.

What is NationsHelm?

NationsHelm is a geopolitical intelligence platform that ranks 203 nations, 225 world leaders, regions, and blocs using transparent indicators, structural scoring, and deterministic scoring, and LLM synthesis (coming soon) — turning 35+ public data points into a clear, comparable read on global power, risk, and opportunity.

Global rankings

Nations, leaders, regions, and blocs ranked side by side on a transparent, comparable scale.

Structural indicators

Indicators spanning economics, defense, governance, and technology — sourced and labeled by origin.

Deterministic scoring + LLM synthesis

All scores today are fully deterministic. LLM intelligence briefs layer synthesis on top of the data — coming soon.

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