The  Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a comprehensive framework  for societal progress and planetary health. However, it remains unclear  whether universal patterns exist in how nations pursue these goals and  whether key development areas are being overlooked. Here, we apply the  product space methodology, widely used in development economics, to  construct an ‘SDG space of nations’. The SDG space models the relative  performance and specialization patterns of 166 countries across 96 SDG  indicators from 2000 to 2022. Our SDG space reveals a polarized global  landscape, characterized by distinct groups of nations, each  specializing in specific development indicators. Furthermore, we find  that as countries improve their overall SDG scores, they tend to modify  their sustainable development trajectories, pursuing different  development objectives. Additionally, we identify orphaned SDG  indicators — areas where certain country groups remain  under-specialized. These patterns, and the SDG space more broadly,  provide a high-resolution tool to understand and evaluate the progress  and disparities of countries towards achieving the SDGs.