Legal
Sources & licences
Every value in Plain comes from a named source, collected by script and checked before it goes live (see About). This page credits those sources as their licences require. Archive pages also link each answer to its exact source.
Openly licensed data
These sources allow reuse under the licence named, provided they are credited. Where we changed the data (for example converted units, rounded values or calculated one value from two), we say so.
Used for: box-office grosses (which cite Box Office Mojo and The Numbers), film runtimes, mountain, building and bridge figures, river lengths, stadium capacities, song lengths, TV episode counts, video game sales, element densities (mostly CRC Handbook values), country areas, Olympic medal totals, Instagram follower counts and some animal speeds and city populations. Values were extracted from the articles, and units converted where needed.
Licence: Text and data CC BY-SA 4.0
Credit: Wikipedia contributors, English Wikipedia; each answer links to its article.
UN World Population Prospects 2024
Used for: country populations (1 July 2023); population density and GDP per person are calculated by us from them.
Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO
Credit: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024.
World Bank, World Development Indicators
Used for: nominal GDP in US dollars (2025, indicator NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, October 2026 update) and life expectancy at birth (2024, indicator SP.DYN.LE00.IN), the latter rounded by us to two decimals. GDP per person is calculated by us (World Bank GDP divided by UN population).
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Credit: The World Bank: World Development Indicators.
Used for: World Heritage Sites per country; the per-country counts are calculated by us from the dataset.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
Credit: UNESCO, World Heritage List (dataset whc001).
AnAge: The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database
Used for: maximum recorded lifespans and adult body masses of animals (Build 15; weights converted from grams to kilograms).
Licence: CC BY 3.0
Credit: Human Ageing Genomic Resources (HAGR), AnAge database, genomics.senescence.info.
The Economist, Big Mac index data
Used for: Big Mac prices in US dollars (July 2026 release).
Licence: MIT License (full text below)
Credit: Copyright (c) 2018 The Economist Newspaper.
Used for: official Pokédex weights and heights (converted to kilograms and metres); Pokémon BMI is calculated by us from them.
Licence: BSD 3-Clause License (full text below). Plain is not endorsed by PokéAPI or its contributors.
Credit: Copyright (c) 2013–2023 Paul Hallett and PokéAPI contributors.
Public domain data
Used for: capital cities and their coordinates (for distances and flight times, calculated by us), birth and death dates of famous people, and most city populations.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain)
Used for: food energy per 100 g and caffeine in generic coffee, tea and chocolate (SR Legacy, April 2018).
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain)
Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Used for: mean annual wages per occupation (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025).
Licence: Public domain (a work of the U.S. federal government).
Credit: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Used for: an animal top speed.
Licence: Public domain (a work of the U.S. federal government).
Other sources
From these sources we took individual facts (figures), credited here and linked from the answers. Their texts, tables and databases remain protected by their owners' rights, and they are not affiliated with Plain.
European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates
Used for: converting company values and revenues reported in other currencies to US dollars. The cross rates and fiscal-year averages were calculated by us; the original rates are available free of charge from the ECB.
Licence: ECB reuse policy
Credit: Source: ECB.
Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 (2025)
Used for: company revenues (fiscal year 2024).
Licence: All rights reserved by Fortune; figures cited as facts.
Used for: company market values at the end of 2025, and revenues of companies not on the Fortune lists.
Licence: All rights reserved by their owner; figures cited as facts.
Used for: architectural heights of skyscrapers and towers.
Licence: All rights reserved by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; figures cited as facts.
Center for Science in the Public Interest, caffeine chart
Used for: caffeine content of branded drinks, snacks and pills (compiled by CSPI from company data).
Licence: All rights reserved by CSPI; figures cited as facts.
Restaurant chains' official nutrition information
Used for: calories of menu items from McDonald's (via Internet Archive captures of its official site), Starbucks, Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, Dairy Queen, Panda Express, In-N-Out Burger, Arby's, Sonic and Five Guys, and caffeine from Starbucks and Red Bull.
Licence: Published by each company; figures cited as facts.
Used for: animal top speeds, besides Wikipedia: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Guinness World Records and the Mountain Lion Foundation.
Licence: All rights reserved by their owners; figures cited as facts.
2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities
Used for: the energy cost of jogging used to turn menu calories into jogging minutes (an estimate calculated by us).
Licence: Cited as a scientific reference.
Credit: Herrmann SD et al. (2024), 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities.
Internet Archive, Wayback Machine
Used for: reading archived copies of official pages that block automated access; each answer links to the exact capture.
Licence: Captures of third-party pages; rights remain with the pages' owners.
Trademarks and no affiliation
Plain is an independent game. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of the companies, brands, organisations, rights holders or people that appear in it as answers or are credited as sources on this page.
Names of films, songs, TV series, video games, companies, products, restaurant chains, menu items and other brands, and the names of people, are used only to identify them as answers in the game. All trademarks, product names and logos are the property of their respective owners.
Pokémon and Pokémon character names are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc. Plain is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
Big Mac and McDonald's are trademarks of McDonald's. “Big Mac index” data is published by The Economist, which is not affiliated with Plain.
Licence texts
The Economist big-mac-data: MIT License
MIT License Copyright (c) 2018 The Economist Newspaper Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
PokéAPI: BSD 3-Clause License
Copyright (c) © 2013–2023 Paul Hallett and PokéAPI contributors (https://github.com/PokeAPI/pokeapi#contributing). Pokémon and Pokémon character names are trademarks of Nintendo. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of PokéAPI nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Corrections and rights holders
If you spot a wrong value, a missing credit, or you hold rights in something shown here and believe it shouldn't be, please email hello@playplain.app or use the contact page. We'll look at it promptly and fix or remove it where appropriate.