The What hierarchy — 417-node classification tree

The 417-node thematic hierarchy that organizes everything FAND measures.

Where the spatial scales answer where a number sits, the What hierarchy answers what it is. Every value FAND produces is keyed to a “What code” — a position in a classification tree of 417 nodes (291 leaves, 126 branches, max depth 11), organizing roughly 3,000 development indicators drawn from about ten source databases.

It is the thematic navigation axis: a reader looking at a country’s balance sheet clicks Natural Capital and sees it break into fossil fuels, minerals, fisheries, farmland, forests; clicks Fossil Fuels and sees oil, gas, coal. The same tree classifies every component, at every spatial scale.

The top levels

1   Total Assets
├── 1.1   Assets
│   ├── 1.1.1   Claim-Rights — collateralizable
│   │   ├── 1.1.1.2   PA — Produced Assets
│   │   ├── 1.1.1.3   NC — Natural Capital
│   │   │   ├── Fossil Fuels (oil, gas, coal)
│   │   │   ├── Minerals (individual commodities — gold, copper, iron ore, …)
│   │   │   ├── Fisheries
│   │   │   ├── Agricultural Land (cropland, pastureland)
│   │   │   ├── Forest Timber
│   │   │   └── Forest Cover
│   │   └── 1.1.1.4   Cross-Border Claim-Rights (gross foreign assets)
│   └── 1.1.2   Substantive Rights — non-collateralizable
│       ├── 1.1.2.1   HR — Human Resources (education + health)
│       ├── 1.1.2.2   Ecosystem Services — 'free' services of nature (mangroves, hydropower, carbon, water, solar, wind)
│       └── 1.1.2.3   'Free' Trust Infrastructure (institutions, rule of law, social cohesion)
└── 1.2   Liabilities  (to whom?)
    ├── 1.2.2   Deferred Maintenance of trust infrastructure (DM)
    ├── 1.2.3   Cross-Border Duties (gross foreign liabilities)
    └── 1.2.4   Net Worth — the liability to the owners of the place

This is the top of the tree. The full version runs down to individual commodities and ecosystem-service flows, eleven levels deep — it is rendered in full further down this page.

Two classification rules worth knowing

These distinctions are codified in the nc_aggregation flag inside the manifest, so the same tree can answer both “what is Natural Capital?” and “what is the full balance sheet?” without double-counting.

How it powers the site

Every balance-sheet figure on this site is tagged with its What code, which is what makes the thematic drill-down work: expand a parent to see its children, each carrying its own value, source, and NUSAP data-quality pedigree. The interactive explorer below renders the full tree.

Explore the hierarchy

417 nodes · 291 leaves · depth 11. The first 38 are open below; expand any branch to go deeper.