Talk:List of countries by life expectancy/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about List of countries by life expectancy. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a standard UN measure/rank of how developed a country is or is not. It is a composite index based on GDP per capita (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, and school enrollment. However, as it is a composite index/rank, some may challenge its usefulness or applicability as information.

Thus, the following question is put to a vote:

Should any, some, or all of the following be included in the Wikipedia Infobox#Countries|country infobox/template:

(1) Human Development Index (HDI) for applicable countries, with year;

(2) Rank of country’s HDI;

(3) Category of country’s HDI (high, medium, or low)?

YES / NO / UNDECIDED/ABSTAIN - vote here

Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 01:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

The CIA Factbook also includes male and female life expecantcies - this would be interesting to include here.Yzerfontein 16:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I added all of the 2007 data, including the male and female numbers, and I omitted the redundant year column, as all of this year's figures are from 2007. Formatting improvements would be appreciated. Caeculus 07:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, Cia factbook got other numbers than this column, have they recently changed it? RGDS Alexmcfire —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.20.130.17 (talk) 07:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The United Nations also calculated life expectancy for different countries. The rank and result of UN is slightly differ from CIA The World Factbook. For examples, Japan and Hong Kong is considering the world highest life expectancy ranked by United Nations. But in CIA World Fact Book, Japan is only ranked #7 and Hong Kong ranked #6.

So I am considering whether we should add United Nation figures to the table. Joe3600 12:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Ref. Links:

United Nations Human Development Index - International Life expectancy comparison.

I don't necessarily think there's any harm in adding an external link to the study, though its life expectancy estimates are old (2004), and it excludes a number of smaller entities such as Andorra, Macau, and San Marino. That's why Japan and Hong Kong appear to be "ranked" higher. Maintaining consistency and using estimates from the Factbook exclusively is probably our best option. Caeculus 07:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The data from the CIA world factbook seems more complete and up to date. --Lobizón 19:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The CIA world factbook is not up-to-date. Countries hardly ever change from year-to-year. For example, Australian male life expectancy is now 78.7, CIA is 77.8 while UN is 78.9. If you look at the CIA's history of life expectancy at http://www.indexmundi.com/switzerland/life_expectancy_at_birth.html, you can see this problem. It would be better to have the UN figures above the CIA fact book, but even better would be to incorporate results from www.mortality.org, which is a scholarly collection of these stats that are much more up-to-date then CIA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.127.211.46 (talk) 09:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

this seem compeletely different from the CIA ? how can oman's fly a high jump to 75 years? and how did saudi arabia's get so low to 72 years, dont beleive this! get the cia world factbook on again please. 81.132.142.209 12:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The CIA Fact Book methodology is unclear and its figures differ from those of European census authorities making its numbers dubious. I'll get the census authority nu,bers for Oman and Saudi Arabia and post it here later (if they're available online). --Polaron | Talk 13:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• 72.5 (1999) [1]
• 74.2 (2005?) [2]
• 75.6 (UN estimate for 2010)
• 74.2 (UN estimate for 2005)
• 74 (2006 estimate by Population Reference Bureau) [3]
• Time series life expectancy (official): [4]
• Compare to CIA estimate of 73.6 for 2007

• 71 (2000) [5]
• 71.9 (2003) [6]
• 71.6 (UN estimate for 2005)
• 72.8 (UN estimate for 2010)
• 72 (2006 estimate by Population Reference Bureau] [7]
• Compare to CIA estimate of 75.9 for 2007

Why do many people source CIA World Factbook if it's unclear? It's more accurate and shows 2007 estimates. People find the previous list more useful and more accurate, so what's the point changing it? we'll have a vote then ok?

How do you know it's more accurate? How about we compare the CIA, UN, and national census authority figures for the less developed countries and see which agree with each other? --Polaron | Talk 13:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Who want's CIA List?

Who wants the UN List? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.133.207.121 (talk) 12:02, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

This issue seems to have been resolved by including both lists, so voting now is unnecessary. If there's a compelling reason for it, adding/removing/combining lists is still up for discussion of course.Forbes72 (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

But Polaron, what I think is, you should have just left the CIA list, there was no mistakes or it wasn't harmful to anything, it was just a list by CIA! you should have just left it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.152.52 (talk) 19:00, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Eliko 19:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's add these estimates for 2010 which they are really for. Thank You Muzammil01 18:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If all you're concerned about is the year, we can put in both the 2005 and 2010 figures so people can see how the value is changing. Or, if you only want one figure, we can put in the UN figure for 2007. The CIA figures can have huge discrepancies with census authority figures in many less developed countries. It's not even clear what life table the CIA uses to get its figures. --Polaron | Talk 19:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know and I don't understand, why would the estimates of the UN be so low for Saudi and so high in CIA. The United Arab Emirates is ranked so high in many of the UN ests, and lower in the CIA, that's one thing i don't understand. Also Oman, is ranked lower than Saudi by many things, such as infant mortality, from the CIA, but ranks better in the UN. What's more developed, OMAN OR SAUDI ARABIA? the infant mortality rate for Saudi, by the CIA est is 12.41 (per 1000) but the UN estimates say 18.8 (per 1000). And Oman is 18 (per 1000) by the CIA and 12 (per 1000) by the UN, is there some opposite stuff going on here on what?

There is a new HDI list coming soon, do you think Saudi Arabia's HDI is going to go higher than 0.777 (which is for 2004) or lower than 0.777, compared to it's rankings. Saudi Arabia seems to me it remains quite poor to the UN and quite more richer to the CIA World Factbook. I do believe you in a way Polaron, but what if Saudi Arabia's Life expectancy is 75.9 and not 72.8. The UN have calculated life expectancies for 2050, how can you measure them until 2050 (it is quite hard though), what if there is a huge change in a some country, and it's life expectancy has rised quite high, Then how would the UN count that in. You can't just estimate life expectancies for the next 43 years. That's why I like the CIA, it has a new list for every year coming, not like the UN who calculate life expectancies for the next couple of decades. You just can't do that!!!.

Thank You. Muzammil01 21:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Life expectancies are not measured. How do you directly measure the life expectancy a newborn? I don't think there is a test that can tell you that. Life expectancied are calculated from age- and sex-specific number of deaths for a given period of time. These values are then turned into a model life table and you get life expectancies at different ages and the change in these values per year. If you read through the analytical report of the World Population Prospects, it is stated that for Saudi Arabia, the model life table used is the Coale-Demeny west model, which is a generic model derived from the more developed countries (mostly Western Europe). The CIA, on the other hand, seems to be using a linear projection, at least for population figures, which is not necessarily correct. I have not yet checked its numbers for life expectancy. At a minimum, we have no idea how the CIA calculates life expectancies since they do not publish their methodology. Life expectancy is also not directly related to how rich or poor a country is. A high HDI with a low life expectancy is possible if a country has a high GDP per capita for example. --Polaron | Talk 22:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, just adding that the UN recalculates all its figures every year so any new information is included. So the 2005-2010 numbers published next year may be different from this year's estimate if new demographic data that is included in the calculations. --Polaron | Talk 22:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok fine I might have meant CALCULATED I'm sorry for using the wrong word. But even the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) say Saudi Arabia's life expectancy is 75, so it's two against one my friend.

Thanks Muzammil01 11:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it only Saudi Arabia you care about? Have you compared the figures for all the other countries, especially the developing countries. Even the CIA figures are a bit off for some EU countries. The UN list is generally better for demographic figures. If you wish, you can put a footnote beside the Saudi Arabia entry indicating the CIA figure. --Polaron | Talk 12:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

We have had this debate before, let's stop now. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muzammil01 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Well in a way Polaron I do care about Saudi Arabia, but I shouldn't only care of about Saudi, I should care about others too, well I was born in Saudi Arabia but I now live in the United Arab Emirates. I was born in Riyadh (Capital of Saudi) and now I live in Abu Dhabi (Capital of the UAE and the richest city in the world.) lol.

What about you Polaron where do you live?

Muzammil01 17:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

As estimated in 2007, Andora now holds the highest life expectancy in the world. Should this be changed? 69.37.97.64 15:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It does seem rather odd that a sovereign country, member of the United Nations, which ranks highest in the world for life expectancy [8], should strangely be excluded from a list of countries by life expectancy. I can think of no reason whatsoever not to include Andorra. Aridd (talk) 21:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This particular UN list excludes small countries where the life expectancy is strongly affected by migration rates and is no longer a measure of quality of life. The exceptionally high life expectancy in Andorra is due mainly to the fact that many residents of Andorra return to their original country when they grow old and a significant number of residents die outside Andorra. This results in an anomalously low death rate and high life expectancy. We could possibly include it and a few other small countries that were specifically excluded because of this reason as long as we clarify these entries with a note of indicating that the numbers are not necessarily comparable to other countries. --Polaron | Talk 22:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah! It should be changed! Ulysses S Grant (talk) 22:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC) The exceptionally high life expectancy of Andorra and in lesser extent in some small countries due to many factors Firstly Andorra is the small country so the deprived area where people are likely (especially for men) to premature death due to suicide, homicide victims, poor diet are lessened thus the survivor to old age of cohort will be high Secondly most of Andorrans have a good nutrition such as olive oil, fish (imported from France or Spain) and they can access the French or Spain health care system easily. Thirdly Andorra is the country with safe-haven for tax and many Spaniards and French businessmen dwell to Andorra to avoid an income tax and usually die in AndorraCristiano Toàn (talk) 03:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Is it just my computer or is the colour for less than 45 almost exactly the same as the colour for 80+ on the map? 68.145.199.164 (talk) 05:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It's you. If you look at the hex values, the over 80 one (#002100) is a dark green while the under 45 (#210000) is a very dark brown. Maybe they should be changed. —Vanderdecken? ??f 12:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, these two colors can barely be distinguished and should consequently be changed. Eliko (talk) 17:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Can a male/female life expectancy 'age difference' column be added? Icarusii (talk) 22:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. This can easily be deduced by simple subtraction, and the specificity of the information is beyond the scope of the article.Forbes72 (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The CIA now have the 2008 list of countries by life expectancy. When will the UN update a new list for 2007?

Thanks ? Muzammil, ???? ? (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just edited the UN list in a similar way the CIA list is presented. If u have any comments / suggestions about the changes, please let me know. What is the original source of the list? Panos84

The local flag seems to be different from what is shown on the list. Should this be adapted ? Lars 09:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The rankings in this table, being life expectancy from birth, are to a large degree a measure of infant mortality rates. It would be useful if there were sources on how countries vary when it comes to life expectancy from some later age, like at age 5, or at age 15. --Delirium (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Life expectancy at 60, for example, would place USA near the top of the list. ~~

Life expectancy at other ages is interesting information, but is beyond the scope of this article. While "life expectancy" doesn't explicitly state that it must be measured from birth, in and of itself it strongly implies "life expectancy at birth"; the definition at the beginning of the article and the caption on the first image both support this. Adding another list would take away from the focus of this article I think.Forbes72 (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it a bit strange that these three countries have exactly the same values for the male (76.46), female (83.32) and total (79.78) life expectancy (according to the CIA World Factbook)?

Looks like someone copied the same line three times. 85.52.162.4 (talk) 02:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done This is no longer the case.Forbes72 (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Where are the male & female UN figures coming from? They aren't in here. They also don't seem to match WTO data for 2006. For Russia WTO data states, males: 60.1 females: 73.2. Sotnik (talk) 04:25, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The 2009 factbook is now out - how is the update done. Does someone have to type in the individual figures - or is there a nifty script somewhere —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.236.30.159 (talk • contribs)

I can do the update for you. But it won't probably be until tomorrow because it's getting late where I'm at. Elockid (talk) 02:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done Okay it should be updated now. Elockid (talk) 19:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - but just to satisfy my curiousity - was it with via a script, or manual entry (if its manual entry and I notice this year - I should probably do it myself, but if its a script I won't) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.127.209.202 (talk) 17:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It was manually done. It took me quite a while to do it too since it was all manual. Elockid ^(Talk·_Contribs) 18:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect one country is missing in the CIA World Factbook list: only 191 UN member countries are ranked while UN has 192 member states. Who can find the mysterious missing country?LeQuantum (talk) 14:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a new 2010 Life expectancy on the cia website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.90.132.141 (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The first table has a row at the bottom "Average of World Countries" which, I'm guessing, simply adds up all the life expectancies and divides by the number of countries. This seems to be a fairly useless (and actually rather misleading) figure as it doesn't take population differences into account at all - Montserrat (population a few thousand) counts as much as China (population over a billion!) I'd say that we either need to remove the average entirely, or cross-reference to List_of_countries_by_population and properly weight the thing by population. Any ideas? Alex Whittaker (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, just cross-referenced the CIA World Factbook and the average is taken from there, which I assume means it has been done properly. The current wording doesn't really imply this though (looks like it was changed on 04/12/08 as perhaps the old table didn't have a correct average?) I'm changing the text to "Average (weighted by population)" to reflect this. Alex Whittaker (talk) 22:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Should we use either of these data sources on this page?

• US Census Bureau International Database - http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/informationGateway.php
• World Bank - Economic Development Indicators - http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers&userid=1&queryId=135

Nasa-verve (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

but do we need to wait until 2010 to get a 2009 map? I'll hace a crack at inkscaping the 2008 map for 2009. Map legend could do with a tweak. Nankai (talk) 06:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm no mathematical genius, but unless it is completely devoid of women, how can Anguilla's male life expectancy (80.65) be the same as the total average (also 80.65) even though the average life expectancy for women is 83.26? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.170.233 (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

what does "Canada (20% above world average)" mean?

212.247.86.210 (talk) 09:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The CIA fact book has published their 2010 numbers already: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html The U.S. has dropped to 49 and there are other major changes so it would be good to update.

Interesting, but there is a thing I fail to grasp fully. As can be seen life expectancy is closely related to human development, to economic development, to rich nations, in short. How come the US has such low life expectancy?. Boo. Paulajakobs (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

2011 numbers are ready. Should we update?--RoadTrain (talk) 20:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The 2011 numbers have been implemented only partially I think. Based on a few comparisons, they agree with the CIA website [[9]] for some countries (e.g. Monaco & Macau) but not others (e.g. Romania & Jamaica) this may be related to which entries have a citation tag after the country name. What makes this more confusing is that the URL says "2012rank" but the data the CIA gives says "2011 est." The list needs to be rechecked, and then all the redundant citations should be consolidated into one on the title of the list I think.Forbes72 (talk) 21:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that we should include the ALE of females compared to the ALE of males. would contribute to the article. 69.142.35.12 (talk) 14:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), life expectancy in Afghanistan is 47: male 47 and female 50 (2009). [10] Afghanistan Mortality Survey (AMS) puts it 62-64 for both male and female (2011). [11]--Kiftaan (talk) 16:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The list of countries doesn't give a UN member state rank for the UK. I was wondering if that was an omission or if maybe I missed some major development recently? Mcrabb23 (talk) 07:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done The UK entry under the CIA list does properly give a UN member state rank.(#20)Forbes72 (talk) 21:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Seem like vandalism or what is Kaushnik. RGDS Alexmcfire

 Done This vandalism doesn't appear on the page anymore.Forbes72 (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

One is at 27 the other is at 89.

 Done This no longer an issue, I assume it's been fixed.Forbes72 (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The source indicated (United Nations World Population Prospects: 2006 revision) does not contain breakdown for male/female life expectancy used in the article. It is necessary to fill it. Who knows where data is taken from? Front315 (talk) 09:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done I have now updated the UN figures for WPP2010 and given source refs for male/female breakdown HYanWong (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I suggest the writer of this page to also include a discussion of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus etc. These countries have a very big difference between male and female life expectancy, which is due to a number of reasons, one typically cited is alcohol consumption. A discussion of the different reasons would be interesting. A suggestion could also be to add a column with the difference between male and female, so that one could sort on this column. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.21.3 (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I've lived in Ukraine for several years, and it seems that the gap is substantially wider in rural areas. The stats I've seen and read about before do hint that alcoholism is largely to blame for Russia's and Ukraine's low life expectancy, but alcoholism here, albeit probably more common among men, is by no means limited to the male portion of the population, so it's odd that the gap should be so prominent. EIN (talk) 20:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

3 and 11 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.38.183 (talk) 07:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

There are entries for World average and various percentages above and below world average. Since this is based on sorting by overall life expectancy, it is completely wrong when sorting by male or female life expectancy. I think these should be deleted. Bhawthorne (talk) 14:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This article essentially discusses the mean age of death in different countries around the world. Is there no article for the median age of death for these countries? The difference between the mean and median can be very telling (as well as the standard deviation). I feel that this article could be much more beneficial if each chart included the mean and median, at least, as well as the standard deviation.

As an example, by these numbers, we can't be sure if people in Japan actually live longer lives or if there are less people dying at a younger age than in other countries. A bell curve showing live expectancy for each country would be informative but obviously not realistic for a single article.

That's just my two cents regarding a way to improve the page. OlYeller21^Talktome 20:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

In mid December 2012 the Global Burden of Disease initiative released new calculations of life expectancy for 187 countries (see Wang, H. et al.[2012]. Age-specific and sex-specific mortality in 187 countries, 1970-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 380(9859), 2071–2094. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61719-X). For the first time, these figures also include standard errors of the estimates.

The data have also been made publicly available by The Guardian newspaper (see here). Should I produce a new table on this page with this new data? I also have an updated plot of male vs female LE based on this data (http://yanwong.me/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/test.svg), which displays error bars rather than population size of country. Population size is indicated by depth of colour (so that larger countries are more emphasised). I was wondering whether to replace the plot at the top of the page with this new one? I can provide R code to reproduce this plot programmatically. HYanWong (talk) 14:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Now added. However, I couldn't find any figures summed for both sexes. Access to the original dataset unfortunately requires (free) registration. HYanWong (talk) 14:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

is there a reason that switzerland doesnt appear in the UN list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.78.112.87 (talk) 02:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done HYanWong (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Can someone update the data from the UNO on life expectancy? The current data is very outdated because it was calculated in 2007. Here is the link with an excel file http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/DB01_Period_Indicators/WPP2010_DB1_F05_1_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_BOTH_SEXES.XLS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.147.155.27 (talk) 18:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done HYanWong (talk) 13:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I've updated the table to give the most recent UN estimates. For future reference, including when new data become available, an appropriate wiki table can be produced from the online UN data using the following R code

require(gdata)
require(ISOcodes)
#get the spreadsheets from the UN
URL1 <- "http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/DB01_Period_Indicators/WPP2010_DB1_F05_1_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_BOTH_SEXES.XLS"
URL2 <- "http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/DB01_Period_Indicators/WPP2010_DB1_F05_3_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_FEMALE.XLS"
URL3 <- "http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/DB01_Period_Indicators/WPP2010_DB1_F05_2_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_MALE.XLS"
uniqueHeaderText <- "Index"
Both <- read.xls(URL1, stringsAsFactors=FALSE, pattern=uniqueHeaderText, header=TRUE, row.names="Country.code")
Female <- read.xls(URL2, stringsAsFactors=FALSE, pattern=uniqueHeaderText, header=TRUE, row.names="Country.code")
Male <- read.xls(URL3, stringsAsFactors=FALSE, pattern=uniqueHeaderText, header=TRUE, row.names="Country.code")
use <- rownames(Both)[as.numeric(rownames(Both)) <= 900]

#make some shorter country names, as in previous wikipedia tables. Some of these are arguable
data(ISO_3166_1)
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('PRK', ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'North Korea'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('KOR', ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'South Korea'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('IRN', ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Iran'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('TZA', ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Tanzania'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('ABW',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Aruba (Netherlands)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('BRN',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Brunei'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('COD',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Democratic Republic of the Congo'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('FSM',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Federated States of Micronesia'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('FRA',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'France ([[metropolitan France|metropol.]])'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('GUF',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'French Guiana (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('PYF',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'French Polynesia (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('GLP',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Guadeloupe (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('GUM',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- "Guam (US)"
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('HKG',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- "Hong Kong (People's Republic of China)"
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('LAO',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- "Laos"
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('MAC',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- "Macau (People's Republic of China)"
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('MKD',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- "Macedonia"
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('MTQ',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Martinique (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('NCL',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'New Caledonia (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('PSE',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Palestinian territories'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('PRI',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Puerto Rico (US)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('REU',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'Réunion (France)'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('STP',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'São Tomé and Príncipe'
ISO_3166_1$Common_name[match('VIR',ISO_3166_1$Alpha_3)] <- 'U.S. Virgin Islands (US)'
shortnames <- with(ISO_3166_1, ifelse(is.na(Common_name), Name, Common_name))
names(shortnames) <- as.numeric(ISO_3166_1$Numeric)
shortnames <- append(shortnames, c('830'="[[Channel Islands]] (UK)", '530'='Netherlands Antilles (Netherlands)', '900'="{{noflag}}{{Background color|#98fb98|'''- Worldwide average -'''}}"))

#make the table of countries only (plus world summary)
LEtable <- data.frame(row.names=use, Country=shortnames[use], Overall=Both[use, "X2005.2010"], Male=Male[use, "X2005.2010"], Female=Female[use, "X2005.2010"])

#add flags for wikipedia where appropriate, and rank order with ties marked by '='
LEtable$Country <- sub('^([^([{]+\\b)', '{{flag|\\1}}', LEtable$Country)
LEtable$Country <- sub('\\(([^([{]+)\\)', '({{flag|\\1}})', LEtable$Country)
Rank <- as.character(rank(-LEtable$Overall, ties.method = "min"))
LEtable$Rank <- ifelse(duplicated(Rank) | duplicated(Rank,fromLast = TRUE), paste(Rank, "=", sep=""), Rank)

#output wikitable to paste into wikipedia
wikitable.start <- '{| class="wikitable sortable"\n|+ Life expectancy at birth (years)\n|-\n!Rank !! [[sovereign state|state]]/territory !! Overall !! Male !! Female\n'
wikitable.end <-  '|}'
cat(wikitable.start, with(LEtable[order(LEtable$Overall, decreasing=TRUE),], sprintf("|-\n| %s || %s || %0.2f || %0.2f || %0.2f\n", Rank, Country, Overall, Male, Female)), wikitable.end, sep='')

HYanWong (talk) 12:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

the life expectancy numbers are misleading because they do not seem to take into account the fact that in some cultures (countries) gender based infanticide is common. It must by default have a significant effect on the life expectancy numbers in countries where there are major differences in adult gender populations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AGeneralist (talk • contribs) 17:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Russia does not have a single region belonging to Central Asia. Why it is colored so on the chart?--Anixx1 (talk) 13:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/05/spanish-highest-life-expectancy-europe

Actually this ther article claims Spains has now the sencond longest life expectancy after Japan.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2805%2961069-0/fulltext?version=printerFriendly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 01:58, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a weak article on such an important subject. 1. It speaks of "average" life expectancy: mean, median, or mode? 2. If you're reading the figures to work out a pension or something it is of very little use to know the mean life expectancy at birth. You need to divide this up into the post-infant life expectancy/post-teen life expectancy or whatever conveys useful information……..this blanket stat has very little utility Cheeryble, Chiangmai, Thailand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.206.228.124 (talk) 03:26, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

On the Slovenian statisical office (statistični urad) website it states that the average age of men when they die is 71.9 and for women 80. However on the UN life expectancy table it says men 77 women 83. That is a pretty big difference especially for men. The CIA figures are a little more consistent with the "statistical office" but still. I was wandering how can this be? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.78.229 (talk) 09:20, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the WHO only has numbers for 1990, 2000, and 2011. Where did these 2013 numbers come from?184.64.92.24 (talk) 19:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore the data displayed do not correspond to the actual values in the WHS report. Someone should correct it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.24.139.94 (talk) 06:12, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Why are the WHO numbers for male and female both 100? http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688?lang=en I don't even think WHO listed Lichtenstein. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cradendev (talk • contribs) 22:19, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

try to inter this page it will help you a lot http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/mbd/life_expectancy/atlas.html Optimale ^Gu 16:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I wonder why the data in the article and the data of the Official Office for Statistics of the European Union do not coincide for Europe:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=tps00025&language=en

Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.132.74 (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

How reliable are these statistics? I'm seeing sources that list Botwsana's life expectancy for women at 35 years because of the rate of HIV/AIDS. Anywhere from 25-37% of the population is infected. Pkeets (talk) 17:12, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know which one it is. I think it might be the lower one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sometree (talk • contribs) 21:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• I question the value of copying the CIA's easily accessible rank list here, especially since it changes annually,and with great changes (US from rank 53 to 42 for example). Why?

• The methodology section needs to be improved to include sources of all lists, not just the major 3-
• The def of life expectancy should go above methodology- I ran out of patience after waiting minutes for each preview and each save....This site is difficult to edit due to excessive load time. I've edited long pages, but this seems overloaded!--Wuerzele (talk) 01:59, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I know that Israel has been upgraded in status by a recent user, but why would the "male life expectancy" in the WHO 2012 ranking also change? Shouldn't that list remain untouchable until the next time WHO publishes a report? We cannot update a 2012 list with post-2012 data, I would think... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Damon Verial (talk • contribs) 16:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

N. Sudan w/ 64 yrs. but its predecessor is 55 > 53. Fix it OK? 49.147.32.51 (talk) 08:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Does the data include all live births? Or is infant mortality (under 5 years old) excluded from the statistics? If you have a country of two people and one lives to 80 and the other dies at birth, then your average life expectancy is 40. Some life expectancy tables do not include those deaths that are considered infant mortality, and the infant data is show in its own table. If you exclude infant mortality, the average is 80. So how is this data compiled? I tried to to read the methodology section for the first table, and it still is not clear, it says it is compiling under 5 years old deaths but does not say if they are not used in teh calculation of the average. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The actual World Health Organization's data are ENTIRELY different from those currently reported in the entry. For example, Japan has a 84 year ALE for both sexes, not 87! Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Spain, Switzerland and Australia come next with 83. This is the new 2013 list (from page 44), please somebody correct the entry. And be careful to look at the correct columns: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/170250/1/9789240694439_eng.pdf?ua=1 109.168.64.106 (talk) 11:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

[ http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/170250/1/9789240694439_eng.pdf?ua=1&ua=1] from WHO Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:21, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I updated the table.?? Phoenix7777 (talk) 03:31, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the edit. Ranking must be improved.?? Phoenix7777 (talk) 03:43, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

User:Phoenix7777 We can download the data here as a CSv [12] and this bit of software will convert it to a wikitable [13] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:26, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Finished. I downloaded the data. I fixed rankings. Please check and let me know if you find anything wrong.?? Phoenix7777 (talk) 04:31, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Very nicely done :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:08, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

The data from the graph is from 2011's CIA Factbook estimations. More recent data from 2015 can be found here https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2102.html and here https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2119.html I don't have the skills needed to update the graph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tahj42 (talk • contribs) 22:55, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

File:Male Life Expectancy.png and File:Female Life Expectancy.png have different scales. Is there a particular reason this was done? Because in practice, it's misleading. By visual inspection of the two maps, Russia has a far lower life expectancy for males than females, but since the scale is different between the two, they're effectively non-comparable. 66.44.41.91 (talk) 05:32, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I've left a message on the uploader's talk page to see if they're able to fix this. — Huntster (t @ c) 22:02, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Huntster messaged me. But I am not the uploader, I'm just the guy who re-coloured the maps to be more accessible to red-green colourblind readers, when requested. (My view is that the maps, or one of them, should be redone to use the same scale; but this would need access to the original data.) Maproom (talk) 09:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

There are many sources of official data from the countries itself (like China Germany, Russia, France, etc), they are published at official statistical web-sites and/or Ministry of Health sites. I'm pretty sure that that data is more reliable than any of aggregates (UN, CIA factbook, etc) but there is no place to put it. I suggest to either allow adding such data in one of the list and, thus, renaming it (say, UN and official data from the countries itself, whichever is fresher) or add another one for this purpose. 120.85.65.69 (talk) 08:35, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Gathering official data from every single country's website sounds incredibly hard to collect, properly cite, and maintain. If you want to try creating a new list with government estimates for every country, then you're free to try, though. NinjaLore (talk) 02:13, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Is there anywhere on wikipedia, or elsewhere, which tracks life expectancy of countries while ignoring infant mortality? Specifically I'm interested in the effect infant mortality has on increasing life expectancy in countries with low birth rates. 81.159.112.227 (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I've updated the table with information from the website for the CIA World Factbook. The bubble chart and the map next to the CIA table are still using old data, and should be updated. Life expectancies in Angola and much of the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa have improved a lot since those charts were created: all countries have an average life expectency of at least 50 now, instead of Angola's horrifying 38.7. NinjaLore (talk) 02:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

No 2016 data? We're in July of 2017 for Christ's sake. 173.168.210.193 (talk) 03:58, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I merged the various tables into a single one so the figures for each country may be compared. I am leaving the separate tables there for comparison for a day or two before removing them. Guarapiranga (talk) 11:17, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOTPAPER. The separate tables should remain. They have additional info not included in the combined table. Plus some have maps specific to their calculations.

I suggest putting the combined table on top.-- Timeshifter (talk) 13:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

What additional info did I not include—and that cannot be incorporated—in the merged table, Timeshifter? No need for multiple tables with the same data. And WP:NOTPAPER is precisely why:

Keeping articles to a reasonable size is important for Wikipedia's accessibility, especially for dial-up and mobile browser readers, since it directly affects page download time (see Wikipedia:Article size).

The maps should remain, of course. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Row numbers are important. Maps are easier to connect up to the correct column if they are close by. Versus a big gallery of maps next to one combined table.

We accommodate mobile users by putting the most important tables on top. We can not downsize Wikipedia to accommodate mobile users with the least data. That would mean very short articles. Many mobile users have home WiFi, and so data is not a problem at home for them.

Combined tables are difficult for mobile users due to the wider tables in narrow screens.

Wide tables like combined tables are already difficult to view in narrower mobile screens. If a row number column is added to a wide table, then class=nowrap has to be added too. Otherwise the rows will not align as the screen narrows. This makes combined tables even more difficult for mobile users.

Mobile users may only be able to easily view the narrower tables. -- Timeshifter (talk) 03:58, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

The rank column, is that all I didn't include in the combined table, Timeshifter? Sure, that can be added as a fixed rank column. After doing that,the old tables can and should be removed. Right now they're duplicating the data, which may be confusing to readers and cumbersome for editors to maintain (who may update/correct one table and forget the other). Guarapiranga (talk) 10:04, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

(Unindent). WP:PAPER: "Some topics are covered by print encyclopedias only in short, static articles, but Wikipedia can include more information".

Save the current article in Firefox: File menu, save page as, complete web page. Save it to a folder. Check the megabytes in that folder: Right-click, properties.

• List of countries by life expectancy. It is 2.49 MB.

Removing all the other tables does not lower the megabytes all that much. I removed just the tables, and kept the maps, references, and other useful info here:

• User:Timeshifter/Sandbox92. It is 1.87 MB.

The combined table is missing a lot of explanatory info, longer more-understandable column headers, and more.

See my previous reply for all the problems concerning narrow screens on mobile phones.

I would like to see some tables of life expectancy over time. How it has been changing over the decades. Like household debt over the years:

• List of countries by household debt.

-- Timeshifter (talk) 13:21, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: Life expectancy over time is here. I did make a separate page for it.

• List of countries by past life expectancy.--Afus199620 (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: The combined table is missing a lot of explanatory info, longer more-understandable column headers, and more.

If it is, then it should be added. What though? The headers are exactly the same (except abbreviated). The table doesn't replace the text and maps of course. Guarapiranga (talk) 22:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: I suggest making a separate page for the combined sources table if you are still concerned about mobile users. But your wide combined table is not mobile friendly. It's too wide for many mobile screens. I still think putting the table at the top would work too. This article is currently no longer than many other Wikipedia articles. -- Timeshifter (talk) 11:17, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Like that? Guarapiranga (talk) 11:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: No. The combined table should be at the top. And the other tables should be below. -- Timeshifter (talk) 11:45, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Aman.kumar.goel: we had a consensus here about the table you erased. Guarapiranga (talk) 22:15, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Tables which have formed the part of this "combined table" are supposed to get deleted. The source with most recent information is supposed to be mentioned at top rather than a table summarising all sources released at different instances. Aman Kumar Goel^(Talk) 02:36, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Aman.kumar.goel: Tables which have formed the part of this "combined table" are supposed to get deleted.
I agree (as you can see above).

@Aman.kumar.goel: The source with most recent information is supposed to be mentioned at top rather than a table summarising all sources released at different instances.
Not sure where you pulled that from… That's certainly not the case:

• here: List of countries by GDP (nominal)#Lists,
• here: List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita#Lists of countries and dependencies, and
• here: List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita#List of per capita nominal GDP for countries and dependencies.

Might I remind you that:

All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. (WP:NEUTRAL)

I.e., whenever RS disagree, we, as editors, must represent all of their views (or data), not just whomever said it last. Guarapiranga (talk) 03:07, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not able understand what WP:NEUTRAL has do with our issue. As for WP:RS, UNDP is as or more notable than other agencies cited here regarding to human development. Aman Kumar Goel^(Talk) 09:30, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: I have looked at the tables on an iphone X and the smaller iphone 5c. The combined table is very difficult to read in mobile view on either iphone due to the width of the table.

So, I have changed my mind about it being at the top. The combined table should be at the bottom.

When the tables are looked at in desktop view on the iphones the text is so tiny that the tables are very difficult to read. The narrower tables can be expanded by pinch spreading. But when that is done on the combined table much of the table is pushed offscreen.

These are long-known problems on mobile phones. I have seen this discussion long ago on Wikia when they were figuring out ways to format for mobile phones. Wikia worked on mobile viewing long before Wikipedia. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:27, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

So you're looking at tables on a mobile in desktop view? No wonder.

There are far wider tables across Wikipedia (e.g. List of countries by past and future population, List of countries by past life expectancy#List of countries before 1950).

Try this on a mobile phone in desktop view. Guarapiranga (talk) 05:06, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: Have you looked at the combined table on a cell phone? In both mobile view and in desktop view? It is bad in either view.

So it should not be on the top because half of all website traffic is now mobile. When available we should put narrow tables on top.

Percentage of mobile device website traffic worldwide from 1st quarter 2015 to 3rd quarter 2019. -- Timeshifter (talk) 06:57, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I moved the UNDP table (2018) to the top. I agree with Aman.kumar.goel. The more recent tables should go on top. And the UNDP table is narrow, and so it is viewable on cell phones. -- Timeshifter (talk) 11:00, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm wondering if we really need that "combined" table. It's an unnecessary redundant congestion when those lists exist here already. It's poorly formatted too and only making mess out of the page making it unfriendly to read and edit. I will be removing it for now and will think over rest of lists too. These are too obsolete now for inclusion. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 15:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits at {{Flag+link}} by Guarapiranga have broken the article with many "The time allocated for running scripts has expired" errors. There are also some other errors that might be a consequence of the first problem. This article might be trying to do too much. Johnuniq (talk) 08:40, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: I see a lot of "Unexpected < operatorExpression error:" in red in the article. It's not from my edits. All the tables were fine after my last edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy&oldid=927560200

But now that revision is full of errors. So it is probably at the template level as Johnuniq said.

Maybe remove +link|Health in

That might fix the problem in this article until the template {{Flag+link}} is fixed. -- Timeshifter (talk) 10:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done. Guarapiranga (talk) 10:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: That seems to have fixed the problem with this article. And so it confirms that the problem is with your changes to {{Flag+link}}.

I was experimenting with removing the combined sources table (to see if that was overloading the software with scripts) at almost the exact same time as you were removing +link|Health in. I didn't notice your changes right away. And so you beat me to self-reverting my test. -- Timeshifter (talk) 11:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

What's overloading the page are the 5 country tables, not the combined one that calls each country only once. That and Module:ISO 3166. {{flag+link}} uses it to map the given country name to its ISO code so it can figure out which one it is and, through {{iso2country}}, whether it requires a 'the' in the link title. I'm looking at a way of replacing it, but the template is unlikely to break unless an article calls it 1200 times, as this one did. Guarapiranga (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Guarapiranga: Flags, and flag links have long been a problem on Wikipedia. There have been many times I have seen them removed from articles for many reasons. I suggest only using that template {{flag+link}} on the combined table. -- Timeshifter (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Is the data simply based on data about the age of death and then calculating from it a median or some other representative of average? The different sources might have different ways of calculating/projecting as well. Info on these would be a valuable addition to the article! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Satu Sam (talk • contribs) 17:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

For example, just looking at the top 4, the source has:

Hong Kong 84.7, Japan 84.5, Switzerland 83.6, Singapore 83.5

The article table has:

Japan 84.5, Hong Kong 84.1, Singapore 83.8, Italy 83.6

I spot checked the U.S. which in the source ranks ~27, on the Wikipedia list it comes out 38. Additionally, after 25, the article table stops giving equal ranks to equal expediencies.Yaakovaryeh (talk) 21:04, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I also noticed this. The values are inaccurate. I'll do my best to correct them and update the reference links. RandomHashTags (talk) 05:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, the values for the 2020 report for 2019 are correct. They are taken from pages 356-359 at http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2020.pdf. RandomHashTags (talk) 05:21, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

My programs for generation of lists are available at GitHub: for WHO, for the World Bank Group. Programming language is Python (Jupyter-notebook). Feel free to use and modify the code for creation of analogous lists. --Lady3mlnm (talk) 15:08, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

The OECD list only shows 44 entries and doesn't allow a full comparison between all countries in the world. zsteve21 (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The table is messed up; the order is off and you jump from 73.5 to 75.5. Personally I think the CIA data is probably better 2600:1702:9F0:D140:C0D9:D6B7:EF1:302C (talk) 11:49, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that the row for Bermuda is removed, since it is not s country. Jens Ahlström (talk) 10:07, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. A number of territories should be removed in that case, including Palestine. There is no such country.2A02:2454:985E:8900:7C32:8FE7:565:2782 (talk) 21:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)