What the directory contains
The country directory lists the profiles the test compares you against. It holds 209 political-system entries: 129 present-day countries and territories, and 80 historical regimes that no longer exist.
Every entry carries a position on the same twelve axes used by the questionnaire. That shared vocabulary is what makes a comparison possible at all: your answers and a country profile are measured on the same scales.
Reading an axis value
Each axis runs between two poles, and an entry's value describes how far toward one pole it sits. A value near one end means the profile is close to that pole; a value near the middle means the record is mixed or moderate on that dimension.
Do not read the numbers as grades. A high score on Representation means a profile sits toward the democracy pole, but a high score on Power means it sits toward security rather than liberty. Neither direction is "better" — the axes measure positions, not quality.
Present-day versus historical entries
Historical regimes are kept separate on purpose. The default comparison set uses only present-day profiles, so a defunct state is never presented as a current comparison without a label. If you opt into historical entries, they are marked as no longer existing.
This distinction matters for interpretation. "Which modern country is closest to my views?" and "which historical system does this resemble?" are different questions, and mixing them produces misleading answers.
What a match score does and does not say
A match percentage describes the closeness between your twelve positions and a published profile, using an equal-weight Manhattan distance over the axes you answered. Lower total distance means a closer match.
It does not mean that a country represents your views, that its residents would agree with you, or that the profile is a verified description of today's institutions. The original records publish no scoring dates and no reference lists, so treat every score as an interpretation of the model — useful for comparison, not a measurement.
Two profiles with similar overall scores can still disagree sharply on the axis you care about most, which is why opening the axis-by-axis view is more informative than reading the ranking alone.
How to use it well
- Open the closest profile and look at the axes where you differ, not just the ones where you agree.
- Compare two countries with each other, not only with yourself — the homepage comparison tool overlays any two fingerprints and lists the axes where they diverge.
- Follow the axis links from a profile back to the questionnaire statements that produce that dimension.
- Re-take the test after a longer version if a close match looks surprising; more statements per axis reduce the effect of any single wording.
Start here
- Take the free 12 axes test to generate your own twelve positions.
- Browse present-day profiles to see what you are being compared with.
- Read how to read your result before treating a match as a conclusion.