This blog looks at the size of the world’s urban population, the scale of its growth and how its distribution has changed between regions and between countries.
The size of the world’s urban population
The world’s urban population today is around 4.4 billion people – more than the world’s total population in 1975. Over the last 60 years, the number living in urban centres has grown more than fourfold; today, the proportion of urban dwellers reaches 56.2%, compared to less than 15% in 1900 and 34% in 1960.
Many aspects of urban change in recent decades are unprecedented – not only the size of the world’s urban population and its level of urbanisation, but also the number of countries becoming more urbanised, the size of their urban populations and, as the first three blogs in this series explored, the size and number of very large cities. The table below shows how the time needed for one billion people to be added to the world’s urban population has decreased dramatically.
The time needed for one billion additional urban dwellers
| World’s total urban population | Time taken |
|---|
| 0 to 1 billion urban dwellers | 10,000 years (circa 8000 BC to 1960) |
| 1 to 2 billion urban dwellers | 25 years (1960 - 1985) |
| 2 to 3 billion urban dwellers | 18 years (1985 - 2003) |
| 3 to 4 billion urban dwellers | 12 years (2003 - 2015) |
| 4 to 5 billion urban dwellers (projected) | 13 years (2015 - 2028) |
| 5 to 6 billion (projected) | 12 years (2028 - 2040) |
Growth of the world’s urban population
Figure 1 below shows the rapid growth in the world’s urban population from 1960 (when it was 1 billion) to 4.4 billion in 2020. However, the growth rate of urban populations in most nations and many regions is declining.
The UN Population Division provides figures on the average annual rate of change of urban populations for five-year periods from 1950. For most regions and many nations, 2015-20 brought the lowest rate of change recorded going back to 1960-65. This included Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Northern America.
For 2015-20, sub-Saharan Africa saw its second lowest rate of change for its urban population since 1960-65. This is also the case for least developed countries (LDCs), but remember that most nations in sub-Saharan Africa are within this grouping.
Figure 1: Growth in the world’s urban population by region from 1960 to 2020 and projected to 2040
