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Arms Imports

Map No. 282

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India, China and Greece were the three biggest spenders on arms imports in 2003. Together these three territories imported 42% of all arms imports in that year. Over US$19 billion was spent on the international arms trade in 2003.

Included here are major conventional weapons and systems, but not small arms and ammunition. Also excluded are weaponry that is manufactured in that territory.

Central African territories record very little spending on arms imports, so are barely visible on the map. Similarly, Southeastern Africa and Japan record relatively low arms import values. Import values vary between years.

"Waving our red weapons o’er our heads Let’s all cry 'Peace, freedom, and liberty!' " William Shakespeare, 1599

Territory size shows the proportion of worldwide spending on arms imports spent by that territory.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page