Trends in urbanization

Globally, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas. In 2007, for the first time in history, the global urban population exceeded the global rural population, and the world population has remained predominantly urban thereafter (figure 2). The planet has gone through a process of rapid urbanization over the past six decades. In 1950, more than two-thirds (70 per cent) of people worldwide lived in rural settlements and less than one-third (30 per cent) in urban settlements. In 2014, 54 per cent of the world’s population is urban. The urban population is expected to continue to grow, so that by 2050, the world will be one-third rural (34 per cent) and two-thirds urban (66 per cent), roughly the reverse of the global rural-urban population distribution of the mid-twentieth century (also see Annex Table I).

Related Subject(s): Human Settlements and Urban Issues