Urbanization worldwide statistics & facts
A world of cities and towns. Only one in five people now lives in the countryside.
Updated Oct 18, 2026
Reports on markets, companies, economies and consumers, built from official statistics, company filings and original surveys. Every report names its sources and the date of each number.
Key numbers
A selection of numbers from our latest reports. Each one names its source and links to the full report with charts, tables and methodology.
Recently updated
Reports appear here as soon as they are published or revised with new data.
A world of cities and towns. Only one in five people now lives in the countryside.
Read report →A world growing in two directions. The global population still adds almost 69 million people a year, but growth is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South...
Read report →Longer lives, unequal lives. Global life expectancy has risen from 46 years in 1950 to almost 74 years today, and women outlive men in every country.
Read report →The world is approaching a demographic tipping point.
Read report →A larger, older world means more deaths. About 63.6 million people die each year, and that number is set to rise by half by 2050 even...
Read report →More grandparents, fewer grandchildren. The number of people aged 65 and over has grown sevenfold since 1950 and will pass one billion around 2030.
Read report →FIFA paid $5.8M in 2007 and $110M in 2023.
Read report →Exact 2023 Womens World Cup payout for all 32 nations: Spain $10.5M, England $7.5M, players $30K to $270K each.
Read report →Spain earned a record $50M for the 2026 World Cup, $17M more than Argentina.
Read report →Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia, trillion US dollars
Chart of the week
Combined revenue of the six largest US technology companies rose from 0.57 trillion dollars in 2016 to 2.23 trillion dollars in 2025, a growth rate of 16.4 percent a year with no year of decline.
The mix has shifted: Apple produced 38 percent of the total in 2016 and under 19 percent in 2025, while Amazon and Nvidia gained the most. The full report compares margins, AI spending, staff and payouts.
Read the Big Tech report →Most read
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Writes and edits the explanatory notes that accompany each chart, so readers understand what a figure measures and what it means.
About Business Stats
Business Stats publishes statistics reports on companies, markets, economies and consumers. A report brings together the figures on one question, such as how fast the world economy is growing, which companies earn the most or how many people use a platform, and explains what the numbers measure and how they have changed over time.
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Questions
Business Stats publishes statistics reports on markets, companies, economies and consumers. Each report brings together the figures from the organisations that produced them, explains what they measure and shows them in charts and tables that can be downloaded.
Reports are researched and written by our editorial team: Robert D (Managing Editor), Touseef (Senior Data Analyst) and Alina Jones (Content Editor). Figures are checked against their original source before a report is published, and the author is named on each report.
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