Short answers, pulled from the story.
As of 2022-57.5 percent of the world population lives in urban areas, totaling just over 4.5 billion people. The global rural population stands at roughly 3.3 billion. The projected rate of urbanization change for the 2020-2025 period is 1.73 percent per year.
As of 2022, countries with more than 80 percent urban populations include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Denmark, Israel, Spain, and South Korea. Brazil is among the most populous, with over 188 million urban residents and an 87.8 percent urban share.
Burundi projects one of the highest urbanization growth rates, at 5.43 percent per year across the 2020-2025 period. Tanzania and Niger follow closely, at 5.41 percent and 5.38 percent respectively. These countries still have relatively low overall urban shares, meaning the shift from rural to urban life is happening very rapidly from a small base.
Urban population percentage describes the share of a country's total population currently living in urban areas. The urbanization rate describes the projected average annual rate of change in that urban population size over a given period. A country can have a high urban population percentage but a low or negative urbanization rate if its cities are growing slowly or shrinking.
Burundi, Papua New Guinea, and Rwanda are among the least urbanized countries, with urban shares of 14.8 percent, 13.7 percent, and 17.9 percent respectively. Ethiopia records 23.2 percent urbanization, meaning roughly 92 million of its residents live in rural areas.
India records an urban population of over 897 million people, representing 64.6 percent of its total population. Its rural population remains nearly 492 million. The projected urbanization rate of change for India across the 2020-2025 period is 1.78 percent per year.