How the world's people live

In 2025, 45 of every 100 people lived in a city, 36 in a town or suburb and 19 in the countryside. In 1950 it was 20, 40 and 40. On the UN's projection the world is still not mostly city in 2050: 48 of every 100.

cities towns and suburbs rural areas projected (after 2025)

How to read this: one column per year, 1950 to 2050, each column the whole world. The bottom (violet) is people in cities, the middle (amber) people in towns and suburbs, the top (teal) people in rural areas, the same colours on every page. The dashed line is half. Columns after 2025 are hatched: they are the UN's projection, and the UN published no range of uncertainty for them.

The countryside is still filling

Cities grow fastest, but the number of people in rural areas has not stopped growing. On the UN's projection the world's rural population is largest in 2046, at 1.65 billion people.

How to read this: one column per year; the taller it is, the more people lived in rural areas. Hatched columns are projection.

Where most rural people live, and when each country's countryside was, or will be, fullest:

How to read this: each small picture is one country's rural population every five years, 1950 to 2050, on its own scale, so it shows the shape (rising, peaking, falling) rather than the size. Hatched columns are projection.

In 2024, 659 million people had no electricity at home, about 8 of every 100. In 1998 it was 1.61 billion, 27 of every 100.

How to read this: each column is everyone alive that year, 1998 to 2024 (the World Bank gives no world figure before 1998). The coloured part is how many of every 100 had no electricity at home, the grey rest everyone else; the numbers on the left are "of every 100".

The count runs to keep up

In 2024, the number of people with electricity grew by 90.7 million. But the world also grew, by 70.2 million people, so the number without fell by only 20.5 million. Most new people are born where power lines have not yet reached.

Where the people without electricity live, in 2024:

1. Nigeria87 million · 38%
2. Democratic Republic of the Congo85 million · 78%
3. Ethiopia57 million · 43%
4. Tanzania33 million · 48%
5. Uganda22 million · 45%
6. Mozambique22 million · 63%
7. Niger21 million · 79%
8. Madagascar18 million · 58%
9. Malawi18 million · 84%
10. Chad18 million · 87%
11. Sudan17 million · 34%
12. Angola17 million · 45%

How to read this: each bar is the people in one country with no electricity at home; after the count, the share of that country's people.

In 2024, 2.35 billion people did not use the internet: 29 of every 100. In 2005 it was 84 of every 100.

How to read this: each column is everyone alive that year, 2005 to 2024. The coloured part is how many of every 100 had not used the internet in the last three months, the grey rest everyone else.

More women than men

Offline in 2024: 1.29 billion women (31.8 of every 100) and 1.06 billion men (25.8 of every 100), so 232 million more women.

1. women1.29 bn
2. men1.06 bn

How to read this: each bar is people offline in 2024. Only 65 countries publish internet use for women and men separately, so these two world figures are the International Telecommunication Union's own estimates, and no single country here is split by sex.

By age: Europe only

No worldwide count of who is offline at each age may be shown here, but the European Union asks. In 2025, 16.4 of every 100 people aged 65–74 had never once used the internet; among 16–24-year-olds, fewer than 1. In 2007, it was 83 of every 100 people aged 65–74.

under 13 56 or more of every 100 never online

How to read this: one column per year, 2007 to 2025; one row per age group, oldest at the top. The stronger the colour of a square, the more people in it had never used the internet. The two outlined squares are the same generation ten years apart.

Follow that generation: people aged 55–64 in 2015 were 65–74 in 2025. In 2015, 30.6 of every 100 of them had never been online; ten years later, 16.4. Some came online late in life, and some died; the survey cannot say how many of each. Among people aged 65–74 in 2025, 16.9 of every 100 women and 15.9 of every 100 men had never been online. The survey does not ask anyone over 74.

Where the most people are offline (each country's newest figure since 2019):

1. India509 million · 35%
2. Nigeria137 million · 59%
3. China114 million · 8%
4. Pakistan107 million · 43%
5. Ethiopia103 million · 78%
6. Democratic Republic of the Congo88 million · 80%
7. Bangladesh81 million · 47%
8. Indonesia77 million · 27%
9. Tanzania47 million · 69%
10. Uganda46 million · 91%
11. Philippines38 million · 33%
12. Kenya37 million · 65%

How to read this: each bar is the people in one country who did not use the internet; after the count, the share of that country's people.

In 2023, 688 million people did not get enough to eat, about 8.5 of every 100. The fewest in this record was 2018: 564 million. Since then the number has gone up again, by 124 million.

How to read this: one column per year; the taller it is, the more people did not get enough food for an active life. Each figure is an average of three years, drawn at the middle one: the 2023 column is 2022–2024.

Where the most hungry people live (each country's newest figure):

1. India173 million · 12%
2. Nigeria45 million · 19.9%
3. Pakistan41 million · 16.5%
4. Democratic Republic of the Congo41 million · 38.5%
5. Ethiopia25 million · 19.7%
6. Kenya20 million · 36.8%
7. Bangladesh18 million · 10.4%
8. Indonesia18 million · 6.3%
9. Tanzania13 million · 20.2%
10. Madagascar12 million · 39.5%
11. Afghanistan12 million · 28.1%
12. Egypt11 million · 9.4%

How to read this: each bar is the people in one country who did not get enough to eat. In 62 countries fewer than 2.5 in every 100 go hungry; the UN's food agency does not say how many fewer, so those countries are not counted or ranked here.

• Clean water and toilets. The world's count of who has safe water and sanitation is made by WHO and UNICEF. Whether the full record may be reprinted here is a question we have asked and not yet had answered, so it is not drawn. It is at washdata.org.
• Clean cooking. About two billion people still cook over wood, dung or kerosene. The figure's own licence forbids commercial use, so it is not drawn.
• Reading, country by country. Fewer than a hundred countries measure it in any one year, and most rich countries have stopped asking. Each country's figure above is its newest survey, with its year; the world figure is UNESCO's estimate, which fills in the rest.
• "Urban". You may have read that the world became mostly urban in 2007 and is well over half urban now. That figure adds up each country's own idea of a town: 2,000 people in one country, 50,000 in another. The UN now measures every country with one rule, which is what this page uses: on it the world is 45 of every 100 in cities and 36 in towns and suburbs.
• Who, inside a country. Every figure here is a country's share, multiplied by its people. None says which people: rich or poor, old or young, in which region.
• Phones are not people. The count is of SIM cards in use. How many people own a phone is measured in only a few countries.
• Food reaching kitchens is not food eaten. Nobody weighs what every family eats; the figure is what a country grows and imports, less what it sells abroad, feeds to animals, plants again or loses before the shops.

All 236 countries and areas, largest first. The first three columns always add up to 100.

How to read this: every number is "of every 100 people". Cities, towns and rural areas are 2025; no electricity and offline are 2024, hungry 2023, unless a year in brackets says otherwise (the newest figure since 2019). A dash means no figure: 22 countries have none for electricity, 46 for the internet and 69 for hunger, mostly small islands and territories. "< 2.5" means fewer than 2.5 in every 100.

Method: cities, towns and rural areas are the UN's Degree of Urbanization, one rule on a grid of 1 km squares for every country. A city is a cluster of at least 50,000 people living at least 1,500 to the square kilometre; a town or suburb, at least 5,000 people at 300 or more to the square kilometre; everything else is rural. The UN's figures run to 2050; after 2025 they are projection. Every other count is a World Bank share multiplied by the UN's count of people in the same place and year; the world uses the World Bank's own world share, which includes its estimates for countries with no survey. Internet use means having used it in the last three months (the ITU's definition) and stops at 2024. Hunger is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's prevalence of undernourishment, a three-year average drawn at its middle year. Each World Bank figure's own licence record was fetched with it on 2026-09-18 and is checked again on every build.

Method for phones, school and food: phone subscriptions are the International Telecommunication Union's, and school and reading UNESCO's, both through the World Bank; "for every 100 people" is our own division by the UN's count of everyone alive in the middle of the year. The Bank's own figure agrees except in Cyprus, where it counts the people differently. Adults who cannot read are UNESCO's world share times the UN's count of people aged 15 and over. Food is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's food balances (FAOSTAT), which start again in 2010 with a new method; they are published under CC BY 4.0. Each country is shown at its own newest year: FAOSTAT stops counting some countries early, and nothing older than 2018 is used. The world's line is FAOSTAT's own world row, so it is not the average of the countries below it.

Sources: UN WUP 2025 · UN WPP 2024 · World Bank · Eurostat · FAOSTAT · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries