Drones by country: who has all the UAVs?

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are the new face of warfare for the US and many of the world's biggest defence spenders. But where are they based around the world?

Yesterday we published a complete database of reported drone attacks in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, as a senior diplomat criticised their use. But it may be too late. Drones are everywhere.

Data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which it has allowed us to re-publish here on the Datablog, identifies 56 different types of UAVs used in 11 different countries. Where it can calculate actual stocks, this covers 807 drones in active service around the world - and this is a huge underestimate: number data is not available for China, Turkey and Russia.

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Graphic by Craig Bloodworth at the Information Lab

The US is the most open about its drone stocks. The IISS data shows that is has at least 678 drones in service, of 18 different types. Some 14 of them are identified as 'heavy', and includes UAVs such as the MQ-1B Predator, of which it has over 100.

As for the UK, the army has unknown stocks of the Hermes 450 and
Watchkeeper drones, while the RAF has at least 10 MQ-9 Reaper heavy drones.

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