Mapped: Only 60 Countries Are Still Majority Rural

Key Takeaways:

• Only 60 countries still have more than half of their population living in rural areas.
• Nearly two-thirds of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The global rural population share has fallen from roughly two-thirds in 1960 to about 43% today.

Today, most people live in cities, but that wasn’t always the case. Decades of industrialization and economic development have steadily shifted populations toward urban centers, making majority-rural countries increasingly uncommon.

The map above highlights the 60 countries where more than half of the population still lives in rural areas, using the latest available World Bank data. While most are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, a handful remain across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and the Caribbean.

Read the full article here.