National Capability Factbook
National data and statistics are fragmented across agencies, formats and paywalls, making analysis slow and comparison difficult. The Atlas is an open-source factbook on national capability, bringing it all together in one place.
Our mission is simple: to advance the measurement of nations. We are developing new measures and novel indices to bring fresh perspective to a fast-changing world.
Our unit of analysis is the nation. The Atlas profiles more than 280 critical national capabilities, with transparent citation for every measure and published methodology for every index.
The Atlas works anywhere: phone, tablet or desktop. Download PDF briefings on any nation or capability, or query the data directly through factbase.org, our data lab and native AI connector.
50 metrics, five indices, one open-source ontology
Everything on this site is read from the National Capability Framework. Metrics are the standard stocks and flows, measured the same way for every nation. Sovereign capability ratings are the synthesis. Infrastructure is the stock a nation holds. Developments are the ledger, a nation's strategic events over time. Speech is how a nation signals.
197 National Assessments for 288 National Capabilities
2026 National Capability Ratings by Nation
Sovereign capability tiers across nine domains — hard, soft and economic. Each nation is rated from T1 (frontier) down the tiers; the three Frontiers columns count its T1, T2 and T3 results. Filter to a region, or sort any domain column. Rank re-numbers with the active filter.
Pareto Capability Frontiers
| National Capability | Hard Capability | Soft Capability | Econ Capability | Frontiers | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | Nation | CT | SI | NS | HC | II | GI | FS | PI | IT | T1 | T2 | T3 |
| 1 | 🇸🇬Singapore | T3 | T1 | T3 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | 7 | — | 2 |
| 2 | 🇺🇸United States | T1 | T1 | T1 | T3 | T1 | T7 | T1 | T1 | T1 | 7 | — | 1 |
| 3 | 🇨🇭Switzerland | T2 | T2 | T6 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T1 | 6 | 2 | — |
| 4 | 🇨🇳China | T1 | T1 | T2 | T3 | T1 | T7 | T2 | T1 | T2 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 5 | 🇪🇪Estonia | T5 | T3 | T5 | T1 | T1 | T1 | T5 | T2 | T1 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 6 | 🇰🇷South Korea | T2 | T1 | T3 | T2 | T1 | T2 | T3 | T1 | T2 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| 7 | 🇳🇱Netherlands | T1 | T1 | T4 | T3 | T1 | T2 | T2 | T2 | T2 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 8 | 🇸🇪Sweden | T3 | T2 | T5 | T2 | T1 | T1 | T2 | T1 | T2 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 9 | 🇯🇵Japan | T2 | T1 | T3 | T4 | T1 | T3 | T2 | T1 | T2 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 10 | 🇫🇷France | T1 | T1 | T2 | T4 | T1 | T5 | T2 | T3 | T3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 11 | 🇳🇴Norway | T3 | T1 | T5 | T2 | T1 | T1 | T2 | T4 | T3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 12 | 🇩🇪Germany | T1 | T1 | T4 | T4 | T1 | T4 | T2 | T2 | T3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 13 | 🇮🇱Israel | T2 | T1 | T2 | T3 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T1 | T3 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 14 | 🇩🇰Denmark | T4 | T2 | T6 | T2 | T2 | T1 | T3 | T2 | T2 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| 15 | 🇦🇪United Arab Emirates | T4 | T1 | T4 | T4 | T2 | T2 | T2 | T3 | T2 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| 16 | 🇫🇮Finland | T4 | T2 | T6 | T2 | T2 | T1 | T4 | T2 | T3 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| 17 | 🇬🇧United Kingdom | T2 | T3 | T3 | T4 | T1 | T4 | T2 | T4 | T4 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 18 | 🇦🇺Australia | T3 | T3 | T4 | T4 | T2 | T3 | T3 | T4 | T4 | — | 1 | 4 |
| 19 | 🇮🇪Ireland | T4 | T3 | T9 | T5 | T2 | T4 | T5 | T3 | T4 | — | 1 | 2 |
| 20 | 🇶🇦Qatar | T5 | T2 | T6 | T4 | T3 | T4 | T4 | T7 | T6 | — | 1 | 1 |
288 National Capabilities in 73 Capability Groups and 9 Capability Domains
2026 National Capability Ratings by Capability Group
Every component of the National Capability Index — the nine capability domains and their constituent capability groups — with capabilities counted, illustrative score, rating distribution and the current best performer.
Capability Group Rating Distributions
See what people have to say about the Atlas
Here's how it's making a difference for professionals, academics, students, and the general public.
The thing I keep coming back for is the source line under every field. I can put a number in a ministerial brief and show exactly which authority published it, in one click.
Comparable like for like across 196 nations, which is the part nobody else gets right.
We used the capability framework to structure a whole review. Nine domains, 250 capabilities, and a defensible rating on each one. It replaced a spreadsheet we had been maintaining by hand for four years, and it is better than ours was.
I write every essay with a nation profile open in the next tab. It is the only place I have found where the sourcing is good enough to cite and the reading is quick enough to actually do.
Being able to pull the series straight into our own models, rather than screenshotting a chart, is the difference between a nice website and a tool we actually use.
I set the Pareto frontier table as a seminar exercise. Students argue about the rankings for an hour, which is exactly what I wanted.
Asked the connector to rank nations by frontier domains and had the answer in my own notebook before the kettle boiled.
The trade and investment capabilities line up with how we are actually organised internally. That sounds small. It saves a translation step on every piece of analysis we publish.
Clean, fast, and it cites everything. I wish more public data sites were built this way.
I came for one country and lost an hour. No paywall, no sign-up, and it tells you where every number came from.
Got questions?
We got answers
What is Atlas?
An open index of sovereign capability. It rates 196 nations across nine capability domains — spanning hard, soft and economic power — and decomposes those domains into 250+ individually measured capabilities, so a nation's strengths and gaps can be compared like for like.
How are nations rated?
Every capability is scored on a common scale and benchmarked against every other nation, then rolled up into a tier per domain — T1 (frontier) down through the tiers. The Frontiers columns count how many T1, T2 and T3 results a nation holds, which is what drives the headline ranking.
What are the nine capability domains?
Critical Technology, Strategic Infrastructure and National Security under hard power; Human Capital, Information & Influence and Governance & Integrity under soft power; and Financial Strength, Production & Innovation and Investment & Trade under economic power.
Where does the data come from?
Primary sources only — national statistical offices, ministries and the originating international authorities (UN, IMF, World Bank, ILO, FAO, ITU, UNHCR, SIPRI, IISS and others). Every field on a nation profile carries its own source line, so any figure can be traced back to the body that published it.
Can I pull the ratings into my own tools?
Yes. The underlying data is published as JSON alongside the site, and the GINC MCP connector lets you query the index from your own LLM in plain language — asking sovereign-capability questions of nations, domains and individual capabilities.
How often is the index updated?
The headline ratings are published annually, with the 2026 edition current. Underlying indicators refresh as their source authorities release new figures, and each nation profile shows the year attached to every value.