howrare.me
How do you compare to 8 billion people?
Why we built this
Most data about the world lives in academic papers and government databases that almost nobody reads. That data is genuinely fascinating — but it becomes visceral only when it's personal. Not "the average height is 175 cm," but "you are taller than 84% of adult men in your country."
howrare.meturns population statistics into personal context. Every module uses peer-reviewed data to place you somewhere on the global distribution. We keep the framing curious rather than judgmental — nobody is "bad" at their height or heart rate. The goal is genuine self-knowledge, not comparison as competition.
The site started as a weekend project and grew into 30 modules covering body, mind, money, and habits. The Stats Library was added to give every interesting number its own page — searchable, shareable, and backed by a source.
How it works
You enter a value
A measurement, a preference, or an in-browser test result.
We calculate your percentile
Using the same normal distribution math as academic papers.
You see where you stand
Relative to your country, gender, age group, or the global population.
Nothing leaves your browser
All computation is local. No account, no server calls, no data sold.
Privacy — the short version
Your answers are stored in your browser's sessionStorage only — they disappear when you close the tab.
No data is ever sent to a server. All calculations run in JavaScript in your browser.
No tracking cookies. We use Plausible Analytics (privacy-first, no cookies, no cross-site tracking).
No sign-up required for any feature. The Curiosity Card shares a URL-encoded version of your profile — no server stores it.
Full details in our Privacy Policy.
Data sources
Every module links to its primary source. Here are the main datasets powering howrare.me:
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration
Height, weight, BMI by country
UN World Population Prospects
Age, life expectancy, median age
World Bank / PIP
Income, poverty, global wealth distribution
Veale et al. (2015) BJU International
Anatomical measurements
Dhakal et al. (2018) CHI
Typing speed norms
Human Benchmark / Jain et al.
Reaction time norms
Sleep Cycle Annual Report
Sleep duration by country
DataReportal Global Digital Report
Screen time, social media, internet usage
Goldberg (1992)
Big Five extraversion / introversion scale
Dohmen et al. (2011) + Falk et al. (2018)
Global risk tolerance norms
Ethnologue 27th Edition
Language count, speaker data
Our World in Data / IPCC
Carbon emissions, energy
Get in touch
Found a data error? Have a module idea? Something broken? hello@howrare.me