Over half of humanity now lives in cities—urbanization has doubled since 1950. Across 217 countries with 2024 data, Bahrain tops the table for urban population (100 % of population), while Liechtenstein sits at the bottom (14.7).

The top 10

1. Bahrain — 100
2. Bermuda — 100
3. Cayman Islands — 100
4. Gibraltar — 100
5. Hong Kong SAR, China — 100
6. Kuwait — 100
7. Macao SAR, China — 100
8. Monaco — 100
9. Nauru — 100
10. Singapore — 100

At the other end of the table

• Liechtenstein — 14.7
• Papua New Guinea — 15.4
• Malawi — 17.3

What the numbers show

The global average sits at about 62.9 % of population, with 113 of 217 countries above it. The median country (63.9) trails the leader by a wide margin. The top country reports roughly 6.8× the figure of the lowest — a reminder of how unevenly urban population is distributed.

Explore the complete, sortable ranking on the Urban Population by country map, or test your instincts in the daily map-guessing game. Data: World Bank Open Data, 2024.