Geography12 Planning Sustainable Places: World Population Growth

Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa, according to a new United Nations data set.

The Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations has been issuing for several decades revised estimates and projections of the urban and rural populations of all countries in the world and of their major urban agglomerations. This web site presents the main findings of the 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects which are consistent with the size of the total population of each country as estimated or projected in the 2017 Revision of World Population Prospects (United Nations, 2017).

The Urban Age assembles comparative data and visual information on how global cities perform on key spatial, social, economic and environmental indicators.