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2026-01-03 23:09:07

The Fastest-Growing Jobs in the U.S. in the Next Decade

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Which jobs are adding the most openings over the next decade?

This visualization from USAFacts uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to forecast the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. over the next decade.

Data on the Fastest-Growing Jobs to 2034

As the U.S. population continues to age, home health and personal care aides are the fastest-growing profession by far.

In the span of a decade, there will be a whopping 739,800 new positions in this field added nationwide. However, it’s worth mentioning that these jobs have one of the lowest median salaries on the list at under $35,000 per year.

Tech careers, such as software developers and computer and information systems managers, also feature strongly in the mix, though it’s arguable that AI could impact some of these fields tremendously. Big tech companies famously slowed the hiring of developers in 2025.

Finally, it’s worth noting that there are some well-paying careers that make the list.

In terms of jobs with median earnings well over $100,000 per year, there are a few roles that hit the spot: data scientists ($112.6K), software developers ($133.1K), computer and information systems managers ($171.2K), financial managers ($161.7K), and nurse practitioners ($129.2K) are just a few that stand out.

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Which jobs are the safest from AI? See this infographic on Voronoi to see where the most job security lies.

2026-01-03 21:06:55

Ranked: The Great Lakes by Maximum Depth

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The Great Lakes are one of North America’s most defining natural features. Together, they hold roughly 20% of the world’s surface fresh water and stretch across more than 94,000 square miles. While they are often discussed as a single system, each lake has a very different underwater landscape.

This visualization maps the maximum depth of each Great Lake, highlighting dramatic contrasts shaped by glaciers, geology, and time.

The data for this visualization comes from WorldAtlas, supported by bathymetric data from NOAA and geographic data from Natural Earth.

Lake Superior: The Deepest Freshwater Giant

Lake Superior is the undisputed heavyweight when it comes to depth. At 1,333 feet (406 meters), it is not only the deepest of the Great Lakes, but also the deepest freshwater lake in the United States. Its immense volume means it contains more water than the other four Great Lakes combined.

Why is depth important? Depth plays a critical role in water temperature, circulation, ecosystems, and even shipping routes. Deeper lakes tend to warm more slowly, mix differently, and support distinct aquatic life compared to shallower ones.

Lake Superior’s depth contributes to colder average temperatures and powerful storms, making the lake both ecologically unique and notoriously dangerous for shipping. Its deep basins were carved by glaciers over thousands of years, leaving behind steep underwater cliffs and trenches.

Lakes Michigan, Ontario, and Huron: Deep but Distinct

Lake Michigan ranks second in depth at 923 feet (281 meters). Unlike the others, it is the only Great Lake located entirely within the United States. Its depth supports major commercial shipping lanes and a diverse aquatic ecosystem.

Lake Ontario follows closely with a maximum depth of 802 feet (244 meters), despite being the smallest by surface area. Lake Huron, at 751 feet (229 meters), appears shallower by comparison but still contains enormous volumes of water due to its sprawling size.

Lake Erie stands apart as the shallowest Great Lake, reaching just 210 feet (64 meters) at its deepest point. Its shallow depth allows it to warm quickly in summer and freeze more easily in winter.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The World’s Forests on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

2026-01-03 02:28:21

U.S. Population by Generation

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The age structure of the U.S. population is undergoing a major transition, as younger generations are becoming more prominent.

This visualization breaks down the U.S. population by generation in 2025, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2025.

Millennials and Gen Z Are the Two Largest

Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, are the largest generation in the U.S., with roughly 74 million people. They account for 22% of the total population and are now firmly in their prime working and family-forming years. Close behind is Generation Z, with over 71 million people, representing 21% of Americans.

Boomers and Gen X are a Major Demographical Force

Baby Boomers remain a major demographic force, totaling about 64 million people, or 19% of the population. Now aged 61 to 79, this group continues to impact healthcare demand, retirement systems, and wealth distribution. Generation X is nearly the same size, with 65 million people and an equal 19% share.

Meanwhile, generation Alpha, born from 2013 onward, already numbers more than 51 million people. Although they represent 15% of the population, their impact is still emerging. This cohort will shape future education systems, technology adoption, and long-term workforce trends.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Silent Generation now makes up just 4% of Americans.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Why U.S. Homes Feel Pricier: House Prices vs. Income (1985–2025) on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

2026-01-02 23:41:06

Every ‘Word of the Year’ According to Dictionaries (2020-2025)

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It’s impossible to describe an entire year with just a single word, but the various major dictionaries try each year.

While it can’t capture all of the complexity a year had in store, the right word can be emblematic of a year’s social phenomena, newly established terminology, and shared cultural experiences over those 365 days.

This graphic visualizes the words of the year of five major dictionaries from 2020 to 2025, with the dictionaries’ sites (Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, Collins, Oxford, and Cambridge) being the source of the data.

How Dictionaries Choose Their Word of the Year

Dictionary.com, Collins, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and Cambridge all treat their ‘Word of the Year’ as an editorial choice that is guided heavily by evidence of real-world usage and public interest.

Dictionary.com weighs cultural impact alongside signals like news and social trends, while Collins draws on its Collins Corpus of spoken and written English to spot words that rose to prominence.

Merriam-Webster and Cambridge lean strongly on lookup and search spikes on their sites, then apply editorial judgment (Cambridge also filters for zeitgeist and what’s linguistically notable).

Oxford combines corpus-based language research with editor curation and, in some years, public voting, before its team makes the final call.

In short: editors make the final pick, primarily using data from searches, written and spoken language, along with cultural trends.

Words That Defined Each Year From 2020 to 2025

With the words of the year of various dictionaries laid out clearly, it’s fascinating to see the trends that were felt most each year.

The table below shows the word of the year of major dictionaries from 2020 to 2025:

We can see how 2020 was defined by the pandemic, with pandemic, quarantine, and lockdown all chosen that year (while Oxford University Press didn’t choose a word that year).

While 2021’s words feature vaccine, vax, and perseverance, non-pandemic words and trends like NFT and allyship were part of the mix.

2023 brought AI-related words like hallucinate and AI into the mix, as it was ChatGPT’s first full year after launching in November of 2022.

In 2025, we’ve seen evolutions of more specific AI-related jargon like slop (sloppy or low-quality AI-made digital content) and vibe coding, which defines AI-driven software development through prompts rather than writing out the code oneself.

2025’s other words of the year like parasocial and rage bait define growing cultural trends and behaviors of an increasingly online world, while 6-7 remains a largely incomprehensible meme—ubiquitous among younger generations despite having no clear or widely agreed-upon meaning.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you liked this visualization, check out this graphic on Voronoi that breaks down the world’s most-spoken languages.

2026-01-02 21:02:05

Ranked: The 30 Largest Cities in North America in 2025

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With 17.7 million residents, Mexico’s capital is bigger than New York City and Chicago combined.

Over the next decade, Mexico City is forecasted to add another 175,000 to its population. The Big Apple, in contrast, is set to shrink by about 189,000 residents.

This graphic shows the biggest North American cities by population, based on data from the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects 2025.

Urban populations can be measured in different ways. In this methodology, the UN looks at satellite-mapped urban footprints for consistency. For this reason some city populations may not line up exactly as you may expect.

Where Are the Largest Cities in North America?

Below, we show the 30 most populous cities in North America in 2025:

Rank	City	Country	2025 Population
1	Mexico City	Mexico	17,734,000
2	New York City	U.S.	13,920,000
3	Los Angeles	U.S.	12,740,000
4	Toronto	Canada	5,494,000
5	Santo Domingo	Dominican Republic	4,600,000
6	Guadalajara	Mexico	4,135,000
7	Houston	U.S.	3,955,000
8	Monterrey	Mexico	3,938,000
9	Chicago	U.S.	3,683,000
10	Washington, D.C.	U.S.	3,270,000
11	San Francisco	U.S.	3,163,000
12	Miami	U.S.	2,912,000
13	Guatemala City	Guatemala	2,838,000
14	Montreal	Canada	2,669,000
15	Denver	U.S.	2,266,000
16	Philadelphia	U.S.	2,232,000
17	Las Vegas	U.S.	2,184,000
18	San José	Costa Rica	2,171,000
19	Phoenix	U.S.	1,972,000
20	Puebla	Mexico	1,948,000
21	San Diego	U.S.	1,915,000
22	Port-au-Prince	Haiti	1,868,000
23	Vancouver	Canada	1,708,000
24	San Antonio	U.S.	1,686,000
25	Boston	U.S.	1,640,000
26	San Salvador	El Salvador	1,615,000
27	Tegucigalpa	Honduras	1,607,000
28	Havana	Cuba	1,594,000
29	Tijuana	Mexico	1,558,000
30	Panama City	Panama	1,527,000

With the largest population by far, the Mexico City region drives almost 25% of Mexico’s GDP.

Trade and transportation is the capital’s most prominent sector, bolstered by shifting supply chains and nearshoring. After Mexico City, Guadalajara, known as the “Silicon Valley of Mexico” is the country’s second-most populous city, at 4.1 million.

Meanwhile, New York City sits at a population of 13.9 million in 2025. Since 2020, the financial hub has lost about 128,000 residents, with many moving to Florida, Texas, and California. In contrast, Los Angeles has grown by nearly 250,000 over the same period to reach 12.7 million.

Ranking fourth is Toronto, Canada’s leading financial center. Like Los Angeles, it has added roughly 250,000 residents since 2020, making it one of the country’s fastest-growing major cities. Looking ahead, Toronto is projected to grow by another 370,000 people over the next decade, largely driven by international migration.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the two largest cities on every continent.

2026-01-02 01:36:52

Mapped: Natural Resource Income as a Share of GDP

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Natural resources remain a powerful driver of economic output for many countries. From oil and gas to minerals and forests, these assets can generate enormous income, but they also create vulnerability. This visualization maps natural resource income as a share of GDP, highlighting which economies are most dependent on extracting and selling raw materials.

The data for this visualization comes from the World Bank Group. It measures natural resource rents as a share of GDP in 2021, defined as the economic surplus generated from oil, gas, coal, minerals, and forests after accounting for extraction costs.

Extreme Resource Dependence in Energy Exporters

A small group of countries sits at the extreme end of resource dependence. Libya tops the list, with natural resource rents accounting for 61% of its GDP, reflecting its heavy reliance on oil exports. Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo also derive more than one-third of their economic output from natural resources.

In these economies, government revenues, employment, and foreign exchange earnings are closely tied to global commodity prices.

Rank	Country	Natural Resources Income (% of GDP)
1	Libya	61.03%
2	Iraq	43.45%
3	Democratic Republic of the Congo	38.83%
4	Republic of Congo	37.71%
5	Zambia	35.26%
6	Timor-Leste	34.73%
7	Guyana	33.68%
8	Mongolia	33.14%
9	Iran, Islamic Rep.	30.45%
10	Angola	29.97%
11	Azerbaijan	29.94%
12	Oman	29.21%
13	Papua New Guinea	27.39%
14	Qatar	27.29%
15	Kazakhstan	26.84%
16	Saudi Arabia	25.57%
17	Brunei Darussalam	24.28%
18	Equatorial Guinea	23.50%
19	Algeria	22.59%
20	Liberia	21.92%
21	Chad	21.34%
22	Uzbekistan	20.47%
23	Burkina Faso	20.14%
24	Russia	18.51%
25	Gabon	18.49%
26	Mali	18.42%
27	Solomon Islands	18.40%
28	Cabo Verde	17.66%
29	United Arab Emirates	17.63%
30	Chile	16.90%
31	New Caledonia	16.79%
32	Bahrain	16.64%
33	Mozambique	14.91%
34	Burundi	13.96%
35	Australia	13.36%
36	Ghana	13.35%
37	Sudan	12.75%
38	Peru	12.72%
39	Kyrgyz Republic	11.51%
40	Mauritania	11.45%
41	Somalia	11.24%
42	Guinea-Bissau	10.43%
43	Central African Republic	10.26%
44	Norway	10.05%
45	Suriname	9.59%
46	Bolivia	9.47%
47	Tajikistan	9.05%
48	Sierra Leone	9.04%
49	Myanmar	8.68%
50	Nigeria	8.55%
51	Brazil	7.94%
52	Togo	7.86%
53	Trinidad and Tobago	7.86%
54	Ukraine	7.51%
55	Uganda	7.48%
56	South Africa	7.33%
57	Armenia	7.05%
58	Malaysia	6.92%
59	Ecuador	6.70%
60	Tanzania	6.69%
61	Niger	6.41%
62	Zimbabwe	6.40%
63	Ethiopia	5.87%
64	Madagascar	5.53%
65	Cameroon	5.53%
66	Lao PDR	5.38%
67	Colombia	5.32%
68	Indonesia	5.16%
69	Egypt	5.14%
70	Canada	4.95%
71	Cote d'Ivoire	4.74%
72	Guinea	4.52%
73	Senegal	4.40%
74	Lesotho	4.32%
75	Malawi	4.22%
76	Namibia	4.03%
77	Rwanda	4.02%
78	Nicaragua	3.84%
79	Panama	3.66%
80	Mexico	3.64%
81	India	3.16%
82	Eswatini	3.00%
83	Gambia, The	2.86%
84	Bhutan	2.73%
85	Argentina	2.65%
86	Viet Nam	2.55%
87	Benin	2.30%
88	Fiji	2.25%
89	Tunisia	2.25%
90	Dominican Republic	2.08%
91	Philippines	1.97%
92	Guatemala	1.93%
93	Uruguay	1.93%
94	Sao Tome and Principe	1.88%
95	Belarus	1.86%
96	Thailand	1.82%
97	Serbia	1.75%
98	Estonia	1.72%
99	China	1.71%
100	Comoros	1.63%
101	New Zealand	1.49%
102	Albania	1.44%
103	Pakistan	1.44%
104	Georgia	1.39%
105	Paraguay	1.35%
106	United States	1.28%
107	Kenya	1.23%
108	Honduras	1.22%
109	Sweden	1.21%
110	Latvia	1.17%
111	Romania	1.14%
112	Botswana	1.04%
113	Poland	1.03%
114	Kosovo	0.93%
115	Bulgaria	0.92%
116	Cambodia	0.84%
117	Turkiye	0.83%
118	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.81%
119	Costa Rica	0.76%
120	Croatia	0.68%
121	Montenegro	0.64%
122	Bangladesh	0.61%
123	United Kingdom	0.59%
124	Vanuatu	0.57%
125	El Salvador	0.54%
126	Belize	0.52%
127	Nepal	0.50%
128	Jamaica	0.46%
129	Finland	0.45%
130	Israel	0.44%
131	Afghanistan	0.43%
132	Hungary	0.40%
133	Czechia	0.39%
134	Morocco	0.39%
135	Netherlands	0.34%
136	Denmark	0.34%
137	Barbados	0.33%
138	Haiti	0.33%
139	Portugal	0.29%
140	Lithuania	0.29%
141	Samoa	0.28%
142	Djibouti	0.28%
143	Moldova	0.24%
144	Slovak Republic	0.23%
145	Slovenia	0.19%
146	North Macedonia	0.14%
147	Seychelles	0.12%
148	Austria	0.12%
149	Spain	0.12%
150	Italy	0.11%
151	Ireland	0.10%
152	Greece	0.09%
153	Sri Lanka	0.08%
154	Jordan	0.08%
155	Germany	0.08%
156	Korea, Rep.	0.05%
157	Japan	0.05%
158	Belgium	0.04%
159	Kiribati	0.04%
160	Tonga	0.04%
161	Dominica	0.03%
162	France	0.03%
163	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	0.02%
164	Micronesia, Fed. Sts.	0.02%
165	The Bahamas	0.01%
166	St. Lucia	0.01%
167	Cyprus	0.01%
168	Switzerland	0.01%
169	Luxembourg	0.00%
170	Maldives	0.00%
171	French Polynesia	0.00%
172	Turks and Caicos Islands	0.00%
173	Lebanon	0.00%
174	Mauritius	0.00%
175	Aruba	0.00%
176	Hong Kong	0.00%
177	Macao	0.00%
178	Singapore	0.00%
179	Iceland	0.00%
180	Andorra	0.00%
181	Antigua and Barbuda	0.00%
182	American Samoa	0.00%
183	Bermuda	0.00%
184	Cuba	0.00%
185	Curacao	0.00%
186	Eritrea	0.00%
187	Faroe Islands	0.00%
188	Grenada	0.00%
189	Gibraltar	0.00%
190	Greenland	0.00%
191	Guam	0.00%
192	Isle of Man	0.00%
193	Channel Islands	0.00%
194	St. Kitts and Nevis	0.00%
195	North Korea	0.00%
196	Kuwait	0.00%
197	Cayman Islands	0.00%
198	Liechtenstein	0.00%
199	Monaco	0.00%
200	St. Martin (French part)	0.00%
201	Marshall Islands	0.00%
202	Northern Mariana Islands	0.00%
203	Malta	0.00%
204	Nauru	0.00%
205	Puerto Rico (U.S.)	0.00%
206	West Bank and Gaza	0.00%
207	Palau	0.00%
208	San Marino	0.00%
209	South Sudan	0.00%
210	Sint Maarten (Dutch part)	0.00%
211	Syrian Arab Republic	0.00%
212	Turkmenistan	0.00%
213	Tuvalu	0.00%
214	Venezuela, RB	0.00%
215	British Virgin Islands	0.00%
216	Virgin Islands (U.S.)	0.00%
217	Yemen, Rep.	0.00%

Many of the most resource-dependent countries are concentrated in the Middle East and Africa. Oil- and gas-rich nations such as Iran, Angola, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia feature prominently.

In sub-Saharan Africa, mineral exporters like Zambia and Mongolia, along with oil producers such as Equatorial Guinea and Chad, rely heavily on resource rents.

Advanced Economies Show Low Resource Reliance

In contrast, most advanced economies generate only a small share of GDP from natural resources. Countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom all register resource rents near or below 1% of GDP.

Even resource-rich developed nations like Norway and Australia show relatively moderate dependence, reflecting diversified economies with strong manufacturing and services sectors.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Global GDP Growth Projections in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.