DATA
World population
8.2 billion
people
- Geography
- World
- Period
- 2024
United Nations World Population Prospects 2024, medium-variant estimate for 2024.
The Crisis
Population & demographics
People still concentrate in cities even as global population growth slows. Housing need is local even when the world is 8.2 billion.
UN World Population Prospects 2024 puts world population at 8.2 billion in 2024. World Bank urban-population data, based on UN World Urbanization Prospects, puts the urban share at 57.7%. National definitions of “urban” differ, so that share is not a single street-level density.
A slower-growing world can still have ferocious local housing shortages. Households form where work, safety, and services are. If those places refuse growth, people overcrowd, commute farther, or bid against each other.
City-level demographic dossiers will be added with census sources, not by scraping thin pages. Until a city has a sourced population series, this publication will not invent one.
Sourced figures
Each figure carries a geography, period, and named source. None of these is a global median home price.
DATA
Urban population
57.7%
share of world population
- Geography
- World
- Period
- 2024
- Source
- World Bank
World Bank WDI SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS, based on UN World Urbanization Prospects. National definitions of urban areas differ.
DATA
People lacking adequate housing
2.8 billion
people
- Geography
- World
- Period
- 2024
- Source
- UN-Habitat
UN-Habitat 2024 Annual Report. 'Adequate housing' is a rights-based concept, not a single dwelling-unit count. Earlier UN-Habitat papers have used a range of 1.6–3 billion.