Today, May 22, is the International Day for Biological Diversity.
To mark the occasion, here’s a look at the world’s most biodiverse countries and territories, using two approaches:
(1) total number of species
(2) species richness relative to land or marine area
These rankings are always contentious. People are often disappointed or upset when a country they perceive as highly biodiverse doesn’t rank as high as expected. But rest assured, there’s no agenda here. The methodology involves compiling species count data from leading sources for each country or territory.
That said, the data has limitations. Countries like Singapore and some European nations tend to have more comprehensive biological surveys than most African nations, for example. As a result, undercounts in some countries may affect their rankings. The data also does not account for endemism, nor is there sufficiently comprehensive information on invertebrates, microorganisms, and fungi to include them. At best, these numbers should be viewed as a proxy for biodiversity.
Another caveat: Many islands in regions like the Caribbean and the Pacific are not independent nations and are therefore classified under the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of other countries. This affects calculations of marine biodiversity per unit area, as EEZ boundaries are used in those comparisons.
Finally, many political boundaries are artificial constructs, so one could argue that using “country” as the basis for comparison is inherently flawed.
Average share (%) of biodiversity across amphibians 🐸, birds 🐦, fish 🐟, mammals 🐘, reptiles 🐢, and vascular plants 🌺.
1 🇧🇷 Brazil 13.0
2 🇮🇩 Indonesia 10.4
3 🇨🇳 China 9.8
4 🇨🇴 Colombia 9.5
5 🇵🇪 Peru 8.6
6 🇲🇽 Mexico 8.3
7 🇦🇺 Australia 8.1
8 🇮🇳 India 7.6
9 🇪🇨 Ecuador 7.5
10 🇺🇸 USA 6.7
11 🇻🇪 Venezuela 6.4
12 🇿🇦 South Africa 5.6
13 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea (PNG) 5.5
14 🇧🇴 Bolivia 5.4
15 🇻🇳 Vietnam 5.4
16 🇨🇩 Congo-DRC 5.4
17 🇲🇾 Malaysia 5.3
18 🇹🇿 Tanzania 5.2
19 🇹🇭 Thailand 5.0
20 🇲🇲 Myanmar 5.0
21 🇦🇷 Argentina 4.9
22 🇵🇭 Philippines 4.8
23 🇰🇪 Kenya 4.4
24 🇵🇦 Panama 4.4
25 🇨🇲 Cameroon 4.3
26 🇯🇵 Japan 4.1
27 🇨🇷 Costa Rica 4.1
28 🇲🇬 Madagascar 3.9
29 🇦🇴 Angola 3.7
30 🇲🇿 Mozambique 3.5
Species richness relative to land-sea (TIA+EEZ) area
1 🇸🇬 Singapore 2,615
2 🇧🇳 Brunei 333
3 🇸🇿 Eswatini 222
4 🇷🇼 Rwanda 208
5 🇧🇮 Burundi 189
6 🇲🇪 Montenegro 159
7 🇧🇹 Bhutan 143
8 🇸🇮 Slovenia 143
9 🇬🇲 Gambia 141
10 🇲🇰 North Macedonia 112
11 🇧🇿 Belize 103
12 🇮🇱 Israel 102
13 🇦🇲 Armenia 100
14 🇱🇧 Lebanon 97
15 🇩🇯 Djibouti 96
Species richness relative to land area (excluding fish)
1 🇸🇬 Singapore 2,754
2 🇸🇨 Seychelles 1,913
3 🇵🇼 Palau 1,320
4 🇭🇰 Hong Kong 910
5 🇫🇲 Micronesia 798
6 🇧🇳 Brunei 473
7 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago 380
8 🇬🇲 Gambia 219
9 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico 138
10 🇸🇻 El Salvador 135
11 🇱🇧 Lebanon 130
12 🇯🇲 Jamaica 128
13 🇧🇿 Belize 121
14 🇲🇪 Montenegro 119
15 🇸🇿 Eswatini 119
Species richness relative to land area (Only megadiverse countries that more than 3% of global biodiversity on average)
1 🇨🇷 Costa Rica 124.14
2 🇵🇦 Panama 89.26
3 🇹🇼 Taiwan 83.85
4 🇬🇫 French Guiana 53.82
5 🇬🇹 Guatemala 51.13
6 🇭🇳 Honduras 46.62
7 🇪🇨 Ecuador 45.02
8 🇳🇮 Nicaragua 37.03
9 🇺🇬 Uganda 29.67
10 🇸🇷 Suriname 28.49
