Using the site
Press & citation
How to describe Nations Inquiry, cite a page, quote a figure, and use the name and the logo.
- Last reviewed
- Questions
- contact@nationsinquiry.com
Nations Inquiry in a line
Nations Inquiry publishes country statistics exactly as their publishers released them, and ranks countries on them with a method anyone can read.
In a paragraph
Nations Inquiry is an independent website that collects statistics about the world's countries from the organisations that produce them, among them the World Bank, the UN's agencies, the OECD and university research institutes, and presents them country by country, subject by subject and region by region. Every figure is stored digit for digit as published and linked to its source. From a selected set of those statistics the site builds the Country Index, a yearly ranking that gives each country a position rather than a score and publishes its method, its inputs and its limits in full. The site is not affiliated with, funded by or endorsed by any of the organisations whose data it publishes.
The name
The site is "Nations Inquiry", two words, both capitalised. Please do not shorten it to initials in text. Its ranking is "the Country Index", and because a ranking changes from year to year and a method can change between years, name the edition when you refer to it: "the Nations Inquiry Country Index 2026".
Three words are used carefully on this site and we ask that they be kept apart when quoting it. A rank is a number a publisher printed. A position marked derived is one published statistic put in order by this site. A standing is a place in the Country Index or one of its topics. None of them is a score: the site publishes no score, and describing a standing as one misreads it. The Glossary has the full set.
How to cite
Cite the smallest thing that supports your sentence, and cite the edition rather than the page, because an edition is fixed once published and a page is not. Each pattern below is followed by an example.
An edition of the Country Index
Nations Inquiry Country Index [year] (method v[version]). Nations Inquiry. [URL of the edition page].
Nations Inquiry Country Index 2026 (method v2). Nations Inquiry. https://nationsinquiry.com/country-index/2026
A country's page
"[Country]." Nations Inquiry, [year]. [URL].
"Pakistan." Nations Inquiry, 2026. https://nationsinquiry.com/countries/pakistan
A statistic
The number belongs to its publisher, so cite the publisher for the number and this site for where you read it.
[Publisher]. [Title of the statistic], [edition]. Via Nations Inquiry, [URL of the dataset page].
UNDP Human Development Report Office. Human Development Index, 2025 edition. Via Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/hdi/2025
A position we derived
Say so in the citation, so a reader knows the ordering is ours and the number is not: "position 100 of 188, derived by Nations Inquiry from [publisher]'s [statistic], [edition]".
Quoting figures and using charts
You may quote any figure on this site and reproduce any chart or map with a credit and a link to the page it came from. When a chart carries a source line, please keep it; it names the publisher, which is the credit that matters most. The Terms of use set out the licences in detail, including the ShareAlike licence the Country Index carries.
A standing should be quoted with the field it is a position of: "12th of 174", never "12th". The field is what makes the number checkable, and on this site it is printed beside every position for that reason.
The logo
The mark is an N drawn as a portico: two stems, a slope, a slab and a plinth, in red. The full logo sets the mark beside the wordmark in two colourways, one for light backgrounds and one for dark. Use whichever suits your page, at any size that keeps it legible.
- Logo for light backgrounds (SVG)
- Logo for dark backgrounds (SVG)
- The mark alone (SVG)
A few requests. Keep the slope red: it is the one coloured element, and it is what makes the mark ours. Do not add a gradient, an outline, a shadow or a rounded corner, and do not stretch or rotate it. Do not place the logo so that it appears to endorse something we have not seen. Use it to refer to us or to credit us, which is what it is for.
Interviews and questions
We are glad to explain how a number was collected, how a position was worked out, or why a country is or is not placed. Write to the address at the top of this page, say who you are writing for and by when you need an answer, and we will do our best to meet it.