In November 2025, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) released “World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results”, which provides an overview of global urban transformation by combining urban trends with country-level insights from 1950 to 2050.
Read the report here.
Methodology
The report adopted the “Degree of Urbanization,” which is a standardized, spatially-based method that allows for meaningful international comparisons, alongside results based on national definitions. This innovative approach offers projections for three types of settlements: cities, towns, and rural areas.
The Population Division of UNDESA has been issuing updated estimates of the urban and rural populations of all countries and of their major urban agglomerations. The datasets are used in the annual revisions of the World Urbanization Prospects. This year, the dataset includes estimates of urban and rural populations for 237 countries or areas from 1950 to 2025, with projections extending to 2050. It also provides population estimates for all cities with 50,000 or more residents by 2025.
The dataset is available on an online data portal and can be downloaded as a raw data file.
Credit: UNDESA
Key findings
The report presents ten key messages.
- The world has become more urban; today, more people live in cities than in towns or rural areas.
- The number of “megacities” (10 million inhabitants or more) continues to increase; over half are located in Asia.
- More people live in small and medium-sized cities than in megacities; many of these smaller settlements are among the fastest-growing, especially in Africa and Asia.
- The growth of the world’s city population from now until 2050 will be focused in seven countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia.
- City population growth varies; most cities are expanding, but thousands are experiencing population decline.
- Small and medium towns house now over a third of humanity, and they are essential for sustainable development.
- As the world’s rural population nears its peak size, it still faces unprecedented challenges.
- The Degree of Urbanization method shows that the world is more urbanized than what national statistics indicate.
- Sustainable development needs coordinated planning that considers cities, towns, and rural areas as connected and reliant on each other.
Credit: UNDESA
The latest revision of the World Urbanization Prospects offers insights into future trends for cities, towns, and rural areas, helping local governments anticipate change, improve planning, and prepare for what’s ahead.