censuswall A story · Cities, towns and the countryside, 1950 to 2050
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A story in pictures

Moving to town

Cities, towns and the countryside, 1950 to 2050. Scroll: each picture changes with the words beside it.

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries

20 in a city40 in a town or suburb40 in the countryside

How to read this: each square is one in every 100 people in the world, filled column by column: cities first, then towns, then the countryside.

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In 1950, most people lived outside cities

Of every 100 people in 1950, 20 lived in a city, 40 in a town or suburb and 40 in the countryside. The UN uses one rule for every country: a city is a dense cluster of at least 50,000 people, a town at least 5,000.

Living →

45 in a city36 in a town or suburb19 in the countryside

How to read this: each square is one in every 100 people in the world, filled column by column: cities first, then towns, then the countryside.

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By 2025, 45 of every 100 live in a city

Today it is 45 in cities, 36 in towns and suburbs and 19 in the countryside.

Living →

countedprojection

How to read this: one column a year; the taller it is, the more people lived in the countryside. Hatched columns are the UN’s projection.

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And yet the countryside still grows

Fewer of every 100 people live in the countryside, but there are more of them than ever. On the UN's projection the world's rural population keeps growing until 2046, at 1.65 billion people. Hatched years are projection.

Living →

48 in a city35 in a town or suburb17 in the countryside

How to read this: each square is one in every 100 people in the world, filled column by column: cities first, then towns, then the countryside. Hatched: the UN’s projection.

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Still not mostly city in 2050

On the UN's projection, in 2050 it is 48 of every 100 in cities, 35 in towns and 17 in the countryside: still not half. You may have read that the world is already mostly urban; that adds up each country's own idea of a town, which is different everywhere.

Living →

countedprojection

How to read this: one column every five years; the number above it is how many cities had 10 million people or more. Hatched columns are the UN’s projection.

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Giant cities

Cities of 10 million people or more: 8 in 1975, 33 in 2025, home to 625.4 million people, and 37 in 2050 on the UN's projection.

Cities →

Sources and method

The stories are drawn when the site is built, from the same files as the pages they link to: the UN's population counts and projections, the UN's cities, the scholars' estimates before 1950, NASA's temperatures and NOAA's air. Projections are hatched; where the UN gives a range for the whole population, it is drawn. The UN gives no range for each age, or for cities and the countryside, and the stories say so.