Urbanization worldwide statistics & facts

Urbanization at a glance

About 45 percent of the world population, 3.7 billion people, lived in cities in 2025, according to the UN World Urbanization Prospects 2025. Another 36 percent lived in towns and semi-dense areas, and only 20 percent in rural areas. In 1975, the three groups were roughly equal in size. The number of cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants has more than doubled over the same period, from 5,851 to 12,140, and the number of megacities with 10 million or more people has risen from 8 to 33.

The 2025 edition of the UN report uses a new, harmonised method, the Degree of Urbanisation, which classifies every square kilometre of the planet by population density rather than relying on national definitions of what counts as urban. This report explains the new figures, how urbanisation differs by region, the most urbanised countries, the growth and decline of cities and the outlook to 2050. For a ranking of the biggest cities, see our report on the largest city in the world.

From rural to urban since 1975

The balance between cities, towns and the countryside has shifted dramatically in half a century. In 1975, 31.1 percent of people lived in cities, 38.1 percent in towns and semi-dense areas and 30.8 percent in rural areas. By 2025, the share in cities had risen to 44.8 percent, while the rural share had fallen to 19.6 percent. According to the UN, cities overtook rural areas in the mid-1970s, and the city population overtook the population of towns in 1996.

The countryside shrinks: The rural share of the world population has fallen from almost a third in 1975 to a fifth in 2025.

The UN projects that the share living in cities will rise only modestly to 48.3 percent by 2050, while the share in towns will edge down to 34.6 percent and the rural share to 17.1 percent. Cities and dense towns together, which correspond more closely to most national definitions of urban areas, account for about 58 percent of the world population in 2025 and are projected to reach about 61 percent by 2050.

How many people live in cities, towns and rural areas

In absolute terms, the number of city dwellers has almost tripled, from 1.27 billion in 1975 to 2.43 billion in 2000 and 3.69 billion in 2025. The UN projects 4.67 billion by 2050. Applying the UN shares to the world population, about 2.9 billion people live in towns and semi-dense areas and about 1.6 billion in rural areas in 2025.

Rural numbers flatten: The rural population has grown only from 1.3 billion to 1.6 billion in 50 years and is projected to peak in the 2040s.

The world added about 1.2 billion city residents between 1975 and 2000 and about 1.3 billion between 2000 and 2025. The UN expects urban areas to absorb about two-thirds of global population growth between now and 2050, with most of the rest going to towns. The global rural population is projected to peak in the 2040s and then decline gradually. Overall population trends are covered in our world population statistics.

Urbanisation by region

Northern Africa and Western Asia is the most city-based region, with 59.1 percent of its population living in cities in 2025, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean at 54.0 percent and Australia and New Zealand at 49.1 percent. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia stands at 47.3 percent, and Central and Southern Asia at 42.5 percent. Perhaps surprisingly, Europe and Northern America has one of the lower city shares, at 39.2 percent, because many people there live in suburbs and towns of moderate density.

Africa doubles: The share of people in sub-Saharan Africa living in cities has more than doubled from 18.4 percent in 1975 to 37.7 percent in 2025.

The fastest change has taken place in sub-Saharan Africa, where the city share rose from 18.4 percent in 1975 to 37.7 percent in 2025 and is projected to reach 42.5 percent by 2050, and in Northern Africa and Western Asia, which rose from 35.2 to 59.1 percent. The Pacific islands remain the least urbanised region, with only 13.7 percent of people in cities. In Latin America, the city share is projected to barely change by 2050, at 54.5 percent, because the region urbanised early.

The most urbanised countries

City-states and small, wealthy territories top the list of the most urbanised places. Singapore has 99.5 percent of its population living in a city in 2025, Macao 99.2 percent and Hong Kong 96.4 percent. Bahrain (93.6 percent) and Kuwait (89.0 percent) follow, ahead of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Qatar, Djibouti and Taiwan, all at about 78 percent or more.

Not only rich countries: Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Djibouti rank among the ten most city-based countries, because most of their people live in a few large cities.

The presence of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Djibouti in the top ten shows that urbanisation is not only a feature of rich economies. In these countries, much of the population lives in a few large cities, such as Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire in Congo, with thinly populated land beyond. In the United States, population is spread across many metropolitan areas, which are ranked in our report on metropolitan areas in the US, with individual cities covered in the largest US cities.

How many cities, and how big

The world had 12,140 cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants in 2025, more than twice the 5,851 in 1975. The UN projects 15,446 by 2050. The great majority are small: 9,807 cities have between 50,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and 1,822 have between 250,000 and one million. Only 511 cities have more than one million people, including 429 medium-sized cities of 1 to 5 million, 49 large cities of 5 to 10 million and 33 megacities.

Mostly small: 96 percent of the world cities have fewer than 1 million inhabitants.

Megacities still hold a relatively small share of humanity. The 33 megacities house nearly 8 percent of the world population in 2025, up from under 3 percent in 1975, when there were only 8. Jakarta is the largest city in the world under the new method, with about 42 million people, ahead of Dhaka (37 million) and Tokyo (33 million). The UN expects 37 megacities by 2050.

Thousands of new cities: The number of cities is projected to grow by another 3,300 by 2050, many of them settlements that are towns today.

New cities matter for future growth. According to the UN, newly emerging cities accounted for 23 percent of city population growth between 2000 and 2025 and are projected to account for 28 percent between 2025 and 2050. These are places that cross the 50,000-person threshold as surrounding towns grow and merge.

Fast-growing and shrinking cities

City growth is highly uneven. About 400 cities grew by more than 4 percent a year between 2015 and 2025; about a third of them were in sub-Saharan Africa and about a quarter in Central and Southern Asia. More than 70 percent of these fast-growing places had fewer than 250,000 inhabitants. Only three of them, Luanda, Dar es Salaam and Kozhikode, had more than 5 million inhabitants.

At the same time, more than 3,000 cities lost population between 2015 and 2025. About four-fifths of them had fewer than 250,000 inhabitants, more than a third were in China and 17 percent in India. Shrinking cities reflect falling birth rates, ageing and migration to larger centres, trends explored in our reports on the global fertility rate, the global ageing population and population growth by country.

The challenges of urban growth

Rapid urbanisation brings opportunity and strain. According to the UN, more than 1 billion people live in informal settlements, often without secure tenure, clean water or sanitation. In almost all regions, built-up area has expanded faster than population, meaning cities are spreading outwards and becoming less dense, which raises the cost of infrastructure and transport. In richer countries, the main pressure is housing affordability, as our report on the US housing shortage shows.

Urbanisation to 2050

The UN describes the era of rapid global growth in city populations as largely behind us, with a slowdown expected across cities, towns and rural areas. Still, cities are projected to add almost 1 billion people by 2050, mostly in Africa and Asia, and the number of cities is set to rise to more than 15,000. How those cities are planned, housed and connected will shape living standards for billions of people.

Urbanisation in numbers

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