01 / THE URBAN CENTURY
The shape of
city life.
In 1960 a third of the world’s people lived in towns and cities. Today more than half do. Follow every country’s path from 1960 to 2024, as a share of its people and as a number.
of people live in urban areas
World Bank world aggregate
02 / THEN AND NOW
Every place, in 1960 and in 2024.
Urban share of population
2024 · % of people living in urban areas04 / A CLOSER LOOK
Region by region.
World Bank regional totals · 2024
RANKINGS
The spread at a glance.
READING THE DATA
What counts as urban?
Each country decides what counts as an urban area, so a town in one country can be rural in another; compare places with care. Urban share is the percentage of a place’s people who live in urban areas, and city dwellers are the same people as a number. “Change since 1960” is the difference in percentage points between 1960 and the chosen year; it is not population growth. Circle areas on the map and dot areas in the opening chart follow city dwellers.
The atlas covers 217 countries and territories from 1960 to 2024, from the World Bank’s update of 13 July 2026. The 47 places too small for the Natural Earth 1:110m outlines appear as dots at their capitals. The World Bank’s world and East Asia & Pacific totals include Taiwan, which has no entry of its own, so the map shows it without data. West Bank and Gaza has no count of city dwellers before 1990.