About and sources

Military Atlas is a reference on the world's armed forces: country profiles, equipment inventories, side-by-side comparisons and defense news in one place. It is written for people who follow defense and geopolitics, such as students, journalists, analysts and enthusiasts.

Where the numbers come from

Defense budgets: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Personnel: IISS The Military Balance, as listed on Wikipedia. Nuclear warheads: Federation of American Scientists, Status of World Nuclear Forces. GDP and population: World Bank. Missile systems: CSIS Missile Threat. Aircraft, naval and land equipment counts: Wikipedia's national inventory lists and FlightGlobal World Air Forces.

Confidence labels

Every inventory row carries one of three labels. Confirmed: an official or well documented figure. Estimated: an analyst estimate. Alleged: a claim that is not verified. A dash means the source publishes no count.

The ranking

The Military Atlas Index ranks countries from public figures only: budget, personnel, air, land and naval equipment, and strategic forces. It is a rough measure of capacity, not a prediction of who would win a war.

Licenses

Descriptions and photos of equipment and conflicts come from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 and other free licenses, with a link to the source article on each page. News headlines link to the publisher's own website.

Contact

Corrections and questions are welcome. Write to militaryatlas.us@gmail.com (open in your mail app).