Total Trade Between the Global South and the Global North: An Animated Chord Graph
Eduardo Valencia
Total Trade Between the Global South and the Global North: An Animated Chord Graph
Infografik | 2025
An Animated Chord Graph
Total Trade (Imports and Exports) between the Global South and the Global North (2000 - 2023)
A chord graph visualizes flows between two groups and within each group. Here, global trade is shown through three relationships: trade within Global South Countries, trade within Global North Countries, and trade between them. As the arcs on the sides expand or contract, they represent the changing share of global trade occurring within or between these groups of countries.
Note: Each country in the world is assigned to either the Global South or the Global North (analogous to 'developing' or 'developed'). This designation was done using the United Nations Statistics Division 2023 classification. Taiwan is considered Global North.
The United Nations collects reports from countries on their imports and exports. Since one country’s export is another country’s import, these values should, in theory, match. However, in practice, they rarely do. This mismatch happens mainly because:
Import values often include transportation, freight, and insurance costs, whereas export values are reported as 'free on board' (excluding those costs)
Errors can occur when recording the type of product or its value
BACI addresses these issues by estimating the cost differences mentioned in (1) and adjusting for the reporting errors in (2). As a result, it provides a more accurate dataset than the United Nations Statistical Division, even though it uses that data as its starting point.
The graph above summarizes the entire dataset, which contains around 230 million observations.
