Life Expectancy Quiz

How to play

1. Two countries appear side by side (stacked on a phone). The first shows its life expectancy; the second keeps its value hidden.
2. Decide whether the second one is higher or lower and press Higher or Lower.
3. The hidden value counts up and your answer is judged. When you are right, the second card moves across and a new one takes its place.
4. One wrong answer ends the run. There is no timer, and values stay fixed for the whole run. Countries without a value for this measure sit out, and two countries whose values read the same are never paired.
5. Your result is saved in this browser. Once enough people have played a game, the results also show how your score ranks, and you can copy or share an image of your result, or replay.

Understanding the comparison

The top of the table is tight. Japan, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Australia are separated by fractions of a year, so those pairs are close to a coin flip. The reliable signal is at the extremes. Look for conflict, and for countries where child mortality remains high, since deaths in infancy pull the average down sharply.

A period measure, not a personal prediction

Life expectancy at birth summarises the death rates observed across ages in a particular period. It does not predict exactly how long today’s newborns will live: future health conditions and mortality rates can change.

The measure also differs from the average age of people who died that year. Think of it as a way to compare mortality conditions across populations. A national average can conceal differences between regions and groups; the game makes no prediction about an individual’s lifespan.

How this measure is defined

Life expectancy at birth is the number of years a newborn would live if the mortality rates observed in the reference year held for its entire life. It describes one year of conditions, not a forecast for anyone alive today, and it is an average across the whole population rather than a typical age at death.

Sources

Source: World Bank · Data period: 2024 · Collected: 2026-10-01 (UTC)

Years a newborn would live if the mortality rates of the reference year stayed unchanged for its whole life. It describes one year of conditions, not a prediction for people alive today.

The collection date tells you when we retrieved the source, not when every underlying observation was made. A failed refresh does not advance that date. For comparisons, the snapshot loaded for your run supplies the answers.

• World Bank