Urban population
Urban population refers to people living in urban areas as defined by national statistical offices. The data are collected and smoothed by United Nations Population Division.
Urban population
% of population · 2000–2026
Compare up to three countries. Remove one below to make room for another.
Showing selected countries and up to 12 suggestions. Search by name or code across 217 countries and economies.Selected window: 2000–2026. Solid: observed · Dashed: estimate/projection · Dotted: source status unclassified · Diamond: 2026.
Hover over a line or tap a point. Keyboard: Tab to the chart, then use left/right for years and up/down for countries. Home/End selects the first/last observation. The vertical axis does not start at zero.
PROJECTION · 2026 · dashed lines; diamonds only in 2026. Unclassified source values are not certified observed.How to read this chart
Unclassified means the provider did not supply an explicit observation/estimate flag. It does not mean the value is unreliable. Source or methodology changes can affect trends across editions.
Countries publish data on different schedules. A shorter line or a gap means the source has no value for that country and year. Missing values are not zero. Only separately sourced official estimates or projections may fill gaps; we do not invent intermediate values. Use Table to inspect individual years.
The source-check date tells you when we retrieved the data, not the year it describes. Use the observation year when citing a value.
Compare the same definition and period. Differences are descriptive, not causal. National measurement methods may differ; crude rates are not age-standardised. Missing uncertainty intervals in this feed do not mean an estimate is exact.
At the same point in time
Latest comparable common year within this selection: 2026.
United States minus Portugal: 18.57 percentage points.
Japan minus Portugal: 30.71 percentage points.
Calculated by World in Stats from the named source values. This comparison includes 2026 projections, not observed outcomes. Differences are not causal effects.Where did these numbers come from?
- Dataset
- World Development Indicators
- Original indicator
- SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS · Original source
- Data providers
- World Urbanization Prospects, United Nations (UN), uri: https://population.un.org/wup/, note: United Nations Population Division's World Urbanization Prospects, National definitions, publisher: UN Population Division
- Source dataset update
- 8 October 2026
- Retrieved
- 13 October 2026
- Publication date
- Not supplied separately by the API
- Definition
- Urban population refers to people living in urban areas as defined by national statistical offices. The data are collected and smoothed by United Nations Population Division.
- Unit
- % of population
- Transformations
- None. Display values may be rounded; CSV retains source precision.
- Licence & attribution
- World Urbanization Prospects, United Nations (UN), uri: https://population.un.org/wup/, note: United Nations Population Division's World Urbanization Prospects, National definitions, publisher: UN Population Division. Source attribution and terms. No endorsement implied.
- Verification
- Exact API query · Indicator metadata
Interpreting this indicator
This is a share of residents, not a share of land covered by cities. National urban definitions differ, and reclassification can change the series without people moving. It is not a harmonised ranking of city density.
Understand percentages, rates and uncertainty
Data availability varies by country and year. Compare the same definition and time period. Revisions may change historical observations; these values belong to the snapshot retrieved on 13 October 2026.
Urban areas follow national definitions, which may differ. This series is not a harmonised city-size ranking.
This feed does not supply uncertainty intervals for these observations. No ranking or causal explanation is inferred.