Using data from the UN Human Development Report, I’ve mapped public spending (total current and capital expenditures) on three categories - health, education, and military - for each country as a percentage of its GDP, as derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations. For each map, purple represents higher % spending in that category, and green corresponds to lower % spending, while black signifies no data. The scales are different for each map; they are linear scales, but do not express the entire range of values for each variable. For example, there are countries that spend more than 10% of their GDP on health. The scales were set to increase the color variability on the maps, with the median value approximately at the center of the scale.

The fourth map was derived by dividing the military spending by the sum of the health, education, and military values. In other words, it shows what percentage of public money spent on health, education, and military goes to the military.

Data source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2013/