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What Types of People Appear Most on International Currencies?

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What types of people are celebrated on the world's money?

What Types of People Appear Most on International Currencies?

On currencies throughout the world, you’ll see everything from revolutionaries to poets featured prominently. But how does this mix of notable people break down quantitatively?

This graphic by NetCredit shows the types of people, by their main occupations and roles, that are featured on banknotes and coins worldwide.

Global Money Features Power

To find out the types of people most featured on money, NetCredit analyzed all the banknotes and coins in circulation in every country across the globe in 2022.

From monarchs to athletes, the analysis found that many types of people appear on banknotes and coins worldwide. In fact, 51 different main occupations and roles were identified, which were then organized into eight overarching categories:

  • Leadership
  • Government
  • Society
  • Sport & Recreation
  • Military & Espionage
  • Religion
  • The Arts
  • Humanity

Here’s a breakdown of all 51 different occupations, and what percentage of worldwide currencies they’re featured on:

OccupationCategory% on Currencies
MonarchLeadership30.24%
Head of governmentGovernment20.74%
PoliticianGovernment10.03%
MilitaryMilitary & Esionage8.22%
PoetThe Arts5.13%
Religious leaderReligion3.02%
AuthorThe Arts2.26%
ArtistThe Arts1.73%
WriterThe Arts1.51%
MusicianThe Arts1.51%
ActivistSociety1.28%
ScientistScience & Humanities1.21%
Movement leaderLeadership0.98%
SaintReligion0.98%
ExplorerScience & Humanities0.90%
InventorScience & Humanities0.83%
ScholarScience & Humanities0.83%
RevolutionaryLeadership0.60%
BusinessSociety0.60%
HeroSociety0.60%
AthleteSport & Recreation0.60%
Supreme leaderLeadership0.53%
EducatorScience & Humanities0.53%
HistorianScience & Humanities0.45%
SingerThe Arts0.45%
Nationalist leaderLeadership0.38%
DoctorScience & Humanities0.38%
MathematicianScience & Humanities0.38%
ChiefLeadership0.30%
ArchitectScience & Humanities0.30%
EconomistScience & Humanities0.30%
PhilosopherScience & Humanities0.23%
ActorThe Arts0.23%
Chief of stateGovernment0.15%
Revolutionary leaderLeadership0.15%
IntellectualScience & Humanities0.15%
LawyerScience & Humanities0.15%
WifeSociety0.15%
SpyMilitary & Esionage0.08%
RectorReligion0.08%
Civil engineerScience & Humanities0.08%
LinguistScience & Humanities0.08%
PhilanthropistScience & Humanities0.08%
AnthropologistScience and Humanities0.08%
Social workerSociety0.08%
BallerinaSport & Recreation0.08%
Chess championSport & Recreation0.08%
MountaineerSport & Recreation0.08%
ActressThe Arts0.08%
Film directorThe Arts0.08%

The analysis shows that over 50% of the people featured on money are either monarchs or heads of government, many of which are no longer in power.

For instance, Belize was once a British colony and still features the late Elizabeth II on all of its currency—even though the country gained independence from the UK in 1981.

And everyone featured on U.S. currency is also a historical figure. Putting living celebrities on U.S. money has been banned since 1866, after Spencer Clark, who was the Superintendent of the U.S. National Currency Bureau at the time, printed his own face on the 5-cent banknote instead of the explorer William Clark of “Lewis and Clark.”

International Currencies: The Most Popular Figure Heads

Featured on over 100 different currencies around the world, the late Elizabeth II is the most featured person on banknotes and coins.

This makes sense considering the UK’s widespread historical reach. During the height of its reign in the early 20th century, the British Empire ruled nearly a quarter of the world.

"Most common faces on international currencies"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 6 of the top 10 most-featured people on currencies are monarchs, while the rest are heads of government.

Women on Banknotes

While Elizabeth II is the most featured person on currencies around the world, it’s worth mentioning that few other women have been given the same honor.

A study analyzed 1,006 current international banknotes and found that only 15% featured images of women.

However, some countries are actively trying to celebrate more women on their money. For example, the U.S. has been planning to put Harriet Tubman on the U.S. $20 bill for years, and while there have been some delays, the bill is currently on track to get released by 2030.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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China

Vintage Viz: China’s Export Economy in the Early 20th Century

This pie chart, circa 1914, is a fascinating breakdown of China’s export economy just prior to World War I.

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Vintage Viz: China’s Export Economy in the Early 20th Century

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” is the oft-quoted first line of L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go-Between.

A statement that is as profound as it is banal. In other words, when we do history, we’re a bit like tourists. If we really want to understand the past, we have to think like a local.

The infographic above, Aspects of Principal Exports of Chinese Goods to Foreign Countries, is the first in a series that we’re calling Vintage Viz, which presents a historical visualization along with the background and analytical tools to make sense of it.

Today, the People’s Republic of China is the second largest economy in the world, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a growing military power. But at the dawn of the 20th century, things were much, much different.

Opium and the Opening of China to the West

Early Sino-Western trade was restricted by the Qing emperors to three ports, and after 1757, just one, in what became known as the Canton System. This name came from the one remaining port city of the same name, present-day Guangzhou.

Foreign trade was tightly monitored and subject to stiff tariffs, and Western traders chafed under these restrictions. So when in 1839, Chinese authorities moved to shut down opium smuggling—an important source of profit for foreign merchants—Western powers saw their chance and used the pretext to revise the terms of trade by force.

In what became known as the Opium Wars, 1839-1842 and 1856-1860, first Great Britain and then an Anglo-French alliance defeated imperial China and imposed punitive treaties that included indemnities and lowered tariffs, but also expanded the number of ports open to foreign traders, first to five and by 1911, to more than 50.

Map of China in 1904

Westerners were exempted from local laws, Christian missionaries were allowed to proselytize freely, and the opium trade was legalized. Hong Kong was also ceded to Great Britain at this time.

The Treaty Port Era, also known as the Century of Humiliation, was perhaps too much for the country to bear. The weakened central government was beset by popular unrest, including the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), which killed 20 million people, and the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), so-named for the secret society that led the movement, the Righteous and Harmonious Fists.

Eventually, the last Chinese emperor was deposed and a republic declared in 1911. Nevertheless, the government was too weak to impose its will, and was repeatedly challenged by warlords.

So as we approach the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and the period covered by our visualization, we find China weakened internally by civil strife, and externally by Western powers.

The History of this Century-Old Pie Chart

Aspects of Principal Exports of Chinese Goods to Foreign Countries captures Chinese exports for 1914, and comes from The New Atlas and Commercial Gazetteer of China: A Work Devoted to Its Geography & Resources and Economic & Commercial Development.

Originally published in 1917 and edited by Edwin J. Dingle for the Far Eastern Geographical Establishment, the volume contains a wealth of data for the period. According to the book’s Preface, it “seeks to give all the information that is essential to the business-man in regard to a country… about which less is known than in regard to any similar area in the world.”

The visualization breaks down total Chinese exports for 1914 in haikwan taels (hk. tls.), a unit of silver currency used to collect tariffs. In 1907, one haikwan tael was worth $0.79 U.S. dollars.

Official figures come from the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. This was set up by foreign consuls after the First Opium War to collect tariffs to guarantee the payment of treaty indemnities.

Exports in 1914 represented 345 million hk. tls., a 14.4% decrease from 1913, likely owing to the outbreak of the First World War that same year.

Apart from “Other Metals and Minerals, Sundries, etc,” which served as a catch-all category, the largest categories were silks and teas of various types, representing 22.6% and 10.4% of total exports respectively.

Export ItemValue (hk. tls.)
Animals, Living5,270,910
Beancake21,734,135
Bristles4,347,582
Coal8,624,805
Cotton Goods2,012,128
Cotton, Raw12,339,549
Eggs, Fresh, Preserved and Frozen4,192,535
Fire crackers and fire works2,435,841
Grasscloth1,422,727
Mats and Matting3,326,819
Medicines2,672,341
Oil, Bean and Nutgalls6,027,967
Oil, Groundnuts2,414,900
Oil, Wood3,736,275
Opium, Chinese250,255
Other Metals and Minerals, Sundries, etc74,449,181
Paper2,864,983
Ramie1,664,463
Seed, Rape2,662,349
Seed, Sesamum6,355,317
Sheep’s Wool6,658,962
Silk Cocoons2,078,721
Silk Piece Goods10,841,472
Silk Pongees4,720,914
Silk Waste5,025,679
Silk, Raw, not Steam Filature2,811,367
Silk, Raw, White, Steam Filature37,384,485
Silk, Raw, Wild not Filatures4,072,777
Silk, Raw, Yellow Steam Filatures1,267,413
Silk, Raw, Yellow, (not Steam Filature)4,439,073
Silk, Re-Reeled5,552,127
Skins and Hides Undressed (Cow and Buffalo)13,499,340
Skins, Goat Untanned3,207,974
Straw Braid1,104,310
Tallow, Animals and Vegetables3,175,270
Tea Brick, Black6,711,019
Tea Brick, Green2,323,259
Tea, Black16,203,547
Tea, Green10,785,584
Timber1,820,273
Tin, in Slabs7,978,558
Vermicelli Macaroni1,957,827
Wheat3,850,179
Yellow Beans19,005,709
Total345,280,901

Below are some more details that emerge from this visualization.

All the Tea in China

The Chinese tea trade was the subject of another visualization in the Atlas. It shows that China had been steadily losing ground to British India. Between 1888-1892 Chinese exports to Great Britain were 242 million pounds against India’s 105 million pounds. By 1912-1913, India had surpassed China to export 279 million pounds against 198 million pounds.

In 1914, the majority of Chinese exports went to Russia, 902,716 piculs in all. A picul is equal to “as much as a man can carry on a shoulder-pole” or about 133 pounds.

The Silk Road to Profits

Silk has long been in demand in the West as a luxury good, giving its name to the overland trade route that connected East and West for centuries: the Silk Road.

In 1914, China was the largest producer and exporter of silks in the world. On an annual basis, China averaged 14 million pounds, compared to the number two spot, Japan, at 11 million pounds, and number three, Italy, at 9 million pounds. Together, these three controlled 81.7% of the global silk trade.

Chart showing China's silk supply in 1914

The Opium of the Masses?

The opium trade, the pretext that opened China to foreign trade, was still big money in 1914.

A total of 37 million hk. tls. were imported in 1914 from India, up 11.9% from 1908. This is actually down from a peak of 41 million hk. tls. in 1913.

Chart showing China's opium trade in the early 20th century

In 1907, China signed the Ten Year Agreement with India, which ultimately phased out the opium trade. By 1917 the trade was all but extinguished.

Back to the Future

The Aspects of Principal Exports of Chinese Goods to Foreign Countries is a far cry from the contemporary trade picture. China’s top export in 2021 was in the category “telephones for cellular networks or other wireless networks,” and was worth $147.1 billion.

But it’s worth noting that China today is a direct result of this period. The resentment created during the Century of Humiliation would eventually help lead to Mao Zedong, the Long March, and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.

And in 1979, the Chinese central government would set up the first of their own “treaty ports,” in the form of special economic zones, places where foreign companies could set up shop. But this time, it wasn’t foreign powers who were making the rules.

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