Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
33submissions
Finished
33 Weird, Fascinating, And Disturbing Statistics About Pretty Much Everything
Article created by: Viktorija Ošikaitė
If you read Bored Panda, you know we like data. If we're doing a story on a woman banning her mother-in-law from her house, we look at what experts have to say on family relationships. If we're writing about employees quitting on a demanding boss, we present surveys on worker needs.
Numbers help us humans to contextualize individual examples and show us how common or rare, loved or hated something is in a broader sense.
Interested in the big picture, they give us the big picture, Reddit user Awesomeguy256 posted a question to the platform, asking its users "What is the most interesting statistic?" Since then, people have left over 14,000 comments under it, many of which share fascinating information on everything from economics to the animal kingdom. Here are some of the best ones.
This post may include affiliate links.
RELATED:
#2
80% of Orange Tabby cats are male.
#3
Hold up your hands and clap them together.
Wait one second, then do it again.
If you could plot the distance between the first clap and the second clap, it would be more than 800 kilometers.
This is because the Earth is moving around the sun, the sun is moving around the center of the galaxy, the galaxy is moving through the Virgo Supercluster, and the Virgo Supercluster is barreling through the universe. When you add up all the velocities and compare the result to the cosmic microwave background (which is the closest thing we have to a universal frame of reference), it comes out to about 800 kilometers per second.
In the time it took you to read this, you've traveled farther than you'll ever walk in your life.
Paul Kinnear 6 months ago
Brian Blessed said something similar. "When you wake up in the morning, you're in a different part of the universe than when you went to bed".... my head definitely ballooned at that!!!
#5
Sharks are older than trees. Sharks are at least 400 million years old, trees are sitting at 350 million years.
Edit: Also another fun fact, sharks are so successful when it comes to evolution and long term survival because of a trait called "Adaptive Radiation", which is a huge increase of species diversity in a short period of time. Modern sharks stem from an adaptive radiation that happened during the Jurassic Period about 200 million years ago. One of the newest modern sharks is the hammerhead, coming in at around 50 million years.
Lil be lil 6 months ago (edited)
I could use some 'adaptive radiation' right now in this political climate.
#6
That by almost all important measures, the world is a better place to live today than at any other time in human history.
#7
The richest 1% dudes in the world have more wealth than the rest of the planet.
The world's 8 richest men have as much money as the poorest half, 3,6 billions people.
Paul Kinnear 6 months ago
But, you know, we're all just angry at this fact because we're "jealous", apparently (effing Republicans)
#8
The average cumulus cloud weighs more than the Statue of Liberty.
#9
3-4 billion people on this planet earn $2.50 or less per day.
#10
I found out at a conference last week that 5 billion people don't have access to safe surgery.
It really shocked me. That's 5 out of every 7 people in the world.
#11
25% of California’s air pollution is from China.
#12
Til the world record for children born to one woman is 69. She had 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets.
#13
America has about 5% of the worlds population but about 25% of the worlds criminals.
Paul Kinnear 6 months ago
That's what happens when you turn EVERYTHING into a for-profit business
#15
If all the humans alive right now lived in the same density per square mile as New York City, we could all live in the state of Texas.
#18
86% of British people live within 8 miles from where they were born.
Paul Kinnear 6 months ago
Well that's definitely true for me, but it's not something I've ever thought about until now!
#19
Fat leaves our body 86% through the breath. The other 14% leaves our body through water.
#20
It takes roughly 170,000 years for photons from the Sun's core to reach the convection zone of the photosphere where it is released out into space. In other words, the Sun light you see is hundreds of thousands of years old.
#21
The population of Ireland has not yet recovered half-way from the famine of 150 years ago.
The immediate effects of the famine saw a great many people [perished] from starvation or disease and others emigrate to avoid the same fate. The longer term effects created a breakdown in the social order which forced emigration and a consequent 100 year decline in the population. It's only in the last 50 years that the population has started to grow again.
#22
If you and your spouse both have a divorce under your belt , and one (or both) of you have MORE than one divorce under your belt, the failure rate of your marriage is 93%.
#24
80 per cent of 80 year old males or older will have suffered or will face prostate cancer at some point in his life. Eighty. Percent.
#26
The tallest giraffe ever measured (George) was 19 feet (5.8m) tall.
The longest crocodile ever measured (Lolong) was 20.25 feet (6.17m) long
So take the tallest giraffe you've ever seen, and then add a little, and you've got the biggest crocodile ever measured reliably with a tape measure down its back.
Herpetologists agree that sightings of crocodiles up to 23 feet are not unreasonable, but they're very hard to capture when they're that big. Therefore, no absolutely reliable numbers.
#27
Britain had more planes at the end of the Battle of Britain than at the beginning, because they were being made at such an incredible rate that it surpassed the losses.
Paul Kinnear 6 months ago (edited)
Well of course during the Battle of Britain it was pilots that we were short of, and we had to rely on IMMIGRANTS to help us save the country, Farage, you clothhead!!
#28
If you're in a group of twenty-three people, there's a 50% chance that two of them share a birthday.
If you're in a group of seventy people, that probability jumps to over 99%.
#31
It would take 1.2 million mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.
#32
85% of all Americans live within 20 minutes of a Walmart.
Explore more of these tags
You May Like “Cats Can Recognize Their Owner’s Voice, Face, And Even Footsteps”: 50 Interesting Animal Facts If You Like Learning The Bizarre Facts From History, Here Are 45 Really Unexpected Ones 50 Interesting “Today I Learned” Facts If You Are Sick And Tired Of The News (New Pics)
Dominyka Proškėnaitė
Ieva Pečiulytė
Viktorija Ošikaitė
Related on Bored Panda
