All 12,857 of these entries are unverified: each is a model’s recollection, harvested into the developments corpus and not yet checked against a source. A first use is the earliest adoption-side national first on a nation’s timeline, the nearest the corpus has to a date of first use; it shows what to check, not a lag to rely on.
- Entries
- 12,857tagged tech-diffusion
- Nations
- 197
- Technologies
- 7
- Verified
- 0of 12,857
By technology
Adoption is a nation coming to use a technology; capability, coming to build it. Plans are entries announced, agreed or under construction and not yet realised.
| Technology | Entries | Nations with any | Adoption | Capability | Plans | Nations with only plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Railways | 2,348 | 172 | 2,138 | 210 | 257 | 7 |
| Telephone (fixed line) | 1,549 | 197 | 1,428 | 121 | 36 | 0 |
| Electricity | 2,939 | 197 | 2,609 | 330 | 301 | 1 |
| Semiconductors | 672 | 86 | 35 | 637 | 135 | 8 |
| Computers | 1,528 | 170 | 781 | 747 | 119 | 1 |
| Mobile telephony | 1,755 | 194 | 1,621 | 134 | 45 | 1 |
| Internet | 2,066 | 195 | 1,247 | 819 | 222 | 0 |
Technology by technology
Railways
First introduced anywhere about 1825.
- Adoption, measured by
- Passenger km and freight tonne-km per capita
- Capability, measured by
- Route km per land area; domestic rolling-stock and rail manufacturing
- Sources for the measures
- CHAT; Mitchell, International Historical Statistics; UIC
Entries by stage
Every entry for this technology, at its stage.
Plan
First
Expansion
Policy
Setback
257
542
920
432
197
- Entries
- 2,3482,138 adoption · 210 capability
- Nations with any
- 1727 with only plans
- Median first use
- 1882163 nations with one
- Median lag
- 57 yearsafter 1825
Nations with a first use
How many nations had used the technology by each year: the earliest adoption-side national first on each nation's timeline.
Entries by decade
Adoption (coming to use it) and capability (coming to build it).
First and last to use it
The ten earliest and ten latest first uses.
- United Kingdom1825
- United States1826
- France1827
- Austria1832
- Ireland1834
- Germany1835
- Belgium1835
- Canada1836
- Russia1837
- India1837
- Qatar2019
- Ethiopia2015
- United Arab Emirates2009
- Gabon1978
- Swaziland1964
- Mauritania1963
- South Sudan1962
- Liberia1951
- Albania1947
- Cambodia1942
By region
Nations with entries, nations with a first use, and the earliest and median year of first use.
| Region | Nations | With a first use | Earliest | Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia Pacific | 51 | 47 | 1837 | 1892 |
| Americas | 30 | 29 | 1826 | 1870 |
| Africa | 47 | 43 | 1854 | 1904 |
| Europe | 44 | 44 | 1825 | 1860 |
By nation
Each nation's entries for this technology, its first use and the years its entries run from and to.
| Nation | Region | Entries | Adoption | Capability | Plans | First use | Lag | From–to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | Europe | 61 | 47 | 14 | 4 | 1835 | 10 | 1833–2024 |
| France | Europe | 48 | 39 | 9 | 4 | 1827 | 2 | 1827–2021 |
| United Kingdom | Europe | 48 | 38 | 10 | 3 | 1825 | 0 | 1804–2024 |
| Russia | Europe | 43 | 31 | 12 | 5 | 1837 | 12 | 1834–2024 |
| Spain | Europe | 42 | 34 | 8 | 1 | 1848 | 23 | 1844–2024 |
| United States | Americas | 41 | 33 | 8 | 4 | 1826 | 1 | 1826–2024 |
| China | Asia Pacific | 39 | 33 | 6 | 2 | 1876 | 51 | 1876–2023 |
| Italy | Europe | 38 | 31 | 7 | 5 | 1839 | 14 | 1839–2023 |
| Japan | Asia Pacific | 36 | 32 | 4 | 4 | 1872 | 47 | 1870–2024 |
| Ireland | Europe | 32 | 30 | 2 | 4 | 1834 | 9 | 1834–2025 |
| India | Asia Pacific | 31 | 23 | 8 | 6 | 1837 | 12 | 1837–2020 |
| Portugal | Europe | 31 | 29 | 2 | 3 | 1856 | 31 | 1856–2022 |
| South Africa | Africa | 31 | 26 | 5 | 1 | 1860 | 35 | 1860–2025 |
| Australia | Asia Pacific | 30 | 26 | 4 | 3 | 1854 | 29 | 1854–2024 |
| Austria | Europe | 30 | 28 | 2 | 2 | 1832 | 7 | 1832–2025 |
| Canada | Americas | 30 | 25 | 5 | 3 | 1836 | 11 | 1836–2023 |
| Denmark | Europe | 30 | 28 | 2 | 5 | 1847 | 22 | 1847–2021 |
| Sweden | Europe | 30 | 26 | 4 | 1 | 1849 | 24 | 1849–2022 |
| Switzerland | Europe | 30 | 26 | 4 | 5 | 1844 | 19 | 1844–2023 |
| Belgium | Europe | 28 | 25 | 3 | 2 | 1835 | 10 | 1834–2010 |
| Netherlands | Europe | 28 | 28 | 0 | 1 | 1839 | 14 | 1839–2023 |
| Philippines | Asia Pacific | 28 | 26 | 2 | 8 | 1891 | 66 | 1887–2019 |
| Mexico | Americas | 26 | 23 | 3 | 3 | 1850 | 25 | 1837–2023 |
| New Zealand | Asia Pacific | 26 | 23 | 3 | 2 | 1862 | 37 | 1862–2021 |
| Norway | Europe | 26 | 25 | 1 | 2 | 1854 | 29 | 1854–2022 |
Analysis to come
Lag from invention, by the CHAT series
Years from railways’s invention to each nation’s adoption, by CHAT’s invention dates and adoption series rather than the corpus’s recollection, with the gap closing or widening over time.
Uses it, or builds it
Nations that came to use the technology without building it, set against those that built it: adoption entries against capability entries, nation by nation, with the route km per land area; domestic rolling-stock and rail manufacturing beside.
Setbacks and recovery
Closures, wars, collapses and sanctions (197 setback entries), and how long each nation took to return to where it was.
Nation by nation
Every nation's entries in each technology; the deeper the shade, the more entries.
| Nation | All | Railways | Telephone | Electricity | Semiconductors | Computers | Mobile telephony | Internet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 242 | 41 | 24 | 46 | 32 | 31 | 35 | 33 |
| Germany | 238 | 61 | 21 | 52 | 31 | 32 | 18 | 23 |
| United Kingdom | 231 | 48 | 33 | 48 | 25 | 31 | 22 | 24 |
| China | 209 | 39 | 26 | 32 | 38 | 25 | 21 | 28 |
| France | 199 | 48 | 24 | 44 | 16 | 23 | 18 | 26 |
| Japan | 188 | 36 | 17 | 38 | 17 | 31 | 21 | 28 |
| Russia | 188 | 43 | 18 | 40 | 22 | 26 | 16 | 23 |
| Canada | 175 | 30 | 21 | 33 | 14 | 20 | 25 | 32 |
| India | 171 | 31 | 18 | 35 | 20 | 25 | 20 | 22 |
| Spain | 170 | 42 | 19 | 41 | 8 | 18 | 23 | 19 |
| Italy | 166 | 38 | 18 | 31 | 17 | 22 | 21 | 19 |
| Australia | 164 | 30 | 26 | 32 | 10 | 20 | 25 | 21 |
| Brazil | 151 | 19 | 17 | 37 | 13 | 19 | 20 | 26 |
| South Korea | 150 | 21 | 11 | 28 | 27 | 16 | 20 | 27 |
| Taiwan | 145 | 19 | 18 | 28 | 21 | 18 | 21 | 20 |
| Ireland | 138 | 32 | 18 | 26 | 15 | 13 | 13 | 21 |
| Netherlands | 133 | 28 | 17 | 24 | 19 | 12 | 14 | 19 |
| Sweden | 133 | 30 | 14 | 31 | 7 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
| Pakistan | 129 | 19 | 10 | 42 | 3 | 17 | 15 | 23 |
| Denmark | 126 | 30 | 12 | 34 | 5 | 16 | 15 | 14 |
| Mexico | 126 | 26 | 16 | 30 | 8 | 12 | 15 | 19 |
| Indonesia | 120 | 20 | 14 | 23 | 13 | 17 | 16 | 17 |
| New Zealand | 120 | 26 | 15 | 29 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 20 |
| Singapore | 120 | 20 | 18 | 18 | 10 | 22 | 13 | 19 |
| Vietnam | 119 | 16 | 21 | 22 | 13 | 15 | 18 | 14 |
Analysis to come, across the technologies
Diffusion profiles
Each nation’s first use of all seven technologies on one line, early or late against the median, to show which nations adopt early across the board and which only in some.
Leapfrogging
Nations whose mobile networks reached people before fixed lines did, and whose internet came by mobile: the order of first uses, nation by nation.
Against the capability ratings
How early a nation took up each technology set against its GINC capability ratings in the capabilities each technology is tagged to.