If you’re interested in that kind of stuff, I highly recommend the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as starting point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

I’ve wondered the opposite, having spent 6 months in a hot South American country, the heat in tropical countries can feel oppressive and take all your energy away.

Um, the richest city on the planet gets pretty frosty. I can't be bothered but if you wanted to hit the university library for an afternoon, you could probably pretty quickly come up with the data. Or know someone in finance that has corporate access to like bloomberg data.