The drinking age here in the United States is considered an open-and-shut case. Very few people ever question the wisdom of having the drinking age be twenty-one. Little is known about how that age limit came to be, or how it compares nationally. Thankfully, FlowData has helped to remedy this situation. The picture in the article depicts the drinking ages all around the world, in each seperate countries. The United States’ drinking age is matched in harshness by India and Indonesia, the highest drinking age in the world. The only more harsh status is the total ban of alchohol in a number of Middle Eastern and Northeastern African countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. There are some countries, like Greenland, Kazakistan, and Madagascar, where this is no drinking age at all.

I’m not going to make any snide or cynical comments about this in a pledge to civil liberties and lowering the drinking age. Read the data and interpret for yourself. I’ll only let this be known: Drinking levels are much higher in Indonesia and America than in Madagascar and Greenland.