Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 12th of October 2018 to The Sounding Line.

Based on UN population growth projections, demographers expect that the world will have multiple ‘mega-cities’ with population over 80 million people by the end of the 21st century. It is a continuation of a centuries old global trend toward increasing urbanization. Along those lines, the following map from Our World in Data shows whether the majority of a country’s population have lived in rural or urban areas since 1500 AD (for where data exists).

While it is important to note that the definition of what constitutes urban versus rural varies for each country and data is very spotty before the mid 1950s, the trend toward increasing urbanization is clear, particularly in the developed world. The first documented instance of a country having a majority urban population was the US in the 1930s when the mechanization of farming and the ‘Dust Bowl‘ pushed legions of farmer workers into cities in search of work. By the 1950s the majority of the populations of most developed economies were living in cities and by 2050 it is projected that the majority of the population in nearly every country on Earth will be living in cities.

If you would like to be updated via email when we post a new article, please click here. It’s free and we won’t send any spam.