Which country has the highest Rural population?

In 2024, India had the highest Rural population of any country with reported data from the World Bank.

Which country has the lowest Rural population?

In 2024, Cayman Islands had the lowest Rural population among countries with reported data.

How many countries report Rural population?

The World Bank tracks Rural population for 217 countries.

Health & Population

Rural population

Name: Rural population by Country
Creator: World Bank
License: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/public-licenses#cc-by

Rural population refers to people living in rural areas as defined by national statistical offices. It is calculated as the difference between total population and urban population. Aggregation of urban and rural population may not add up to total population because of different country coverages.

World Bank code: SP.RUR.TOTL • Data available for 217 countries • Latest year: 2024

In 2024, India led Rural population at 937.61M.

The world median across 217 reporting countries was 1.64M.

What this measures: Rural population refers to people living in rural areas as defined by national statistical offices. It is calculated as the difference between total population and urban population. Aggregation of urban and rural population may not add up to total population because of different country coverages.

How "Health & Population" indicators are measured

Health and population indicators come from national vital-registration systems, demographic and health surveys, and modeling by the UN Population Division and WHO. Mortality and morbidity estimates are often modeled rather than directly observed in lower-capacity statistical systems, which means some figures are interpolations between survey years. Life expectancy is a "period" measure based on current age-specific mortality, not a forecast of how long someone born today will actually live.

Distribution — 2024

Reporting: 217 countries
Median: 1.64M
Mean: 15.90M
25th percentile: 206,589.00
75th percentile: 9.75M
Range: 0.00 – 937.61M

World at a Glance — 2024

Every reporting country, grouped by region, shaded by value (quintile).

Lighter = lower value · Darker = higher value. Hover a cell to see the country and value.

Highest Values — 2024

#	Country	Rural population
1	India South Asia	937.611M
2	China East Asia & Pacific	480.535M
3	Pakistan Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan	152.838M
4	Indonesia East Asia & Pacific	116.936M
5	Bangladesh South Asia	116.845M
6	Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa	100.864M
7	Nigeria Sub-Saharan Africa	86.148M
8	United States North America	67.598M
9	Egypt, Arab Rep. Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan	66.659M
10	Viet Nam East Asia & Pacific	62.117M

Looking for a specific country? Only the top and bottom 10 appear here. See where every country ranks for Rural population.

View complete rankings →

Biggest Movers — Year over Year

Largest increases

Largest decreases

By Income Group — Average

Income group	Countries	Mean
High income	86	3.22M
Upper middle income	54	15.84M
Lower middle income	50	36.44M
Low income	25	15.69M
Not classified	2	51.95M

By Region — Average

Region	Countries	Mean
East Asia & Pacific	37	22.86M
Europe & Central Asia	58	4.17M
Latin America & Caribbean	42	2.95M
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan	23	15.66M
North America	3	24.91M
South Asia	6	180.42M
Sub-Saharan Africa	48	15.02M

Lowest Values — 2024

#	Country	Rural population
1	Cayman Islands	0.00
2	Monaco	0.00
3	Bermuda	0.00
4	Sint Maarten (Dutch part)	0.00
5	Nauru	0.00
6	Hong Kong SAR, China	0.00
7	Macao SAR, China	0.00
8	St. Martin (French part)	0.00
9	Bahrain	0.00
10	Kuwait	0.00

Download full dataset: CSV JSON

Source: World Bank Open Data (SP.RUR.TOTL), CC BY 4.0. Rankings show countries with available data for 2024.