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STORY: UN / WORLD URBANIZATION PROSPECTS
TRT: 03:10
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 18 NOVEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN headquarters
18 NOVEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Bjørg Sandkjær, ASG for Policy Coordination, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“The World Urbanization Prospects 2025 looks like this. I would encourage all of you to look it up online.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Bjørg Sandkjær, ASG for Policy Coordination, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“Sustainable development requires integrated planning that treats cities, towns and rural areas as interconnected and interdependent. So, we need to recognize the unique role of all settlement types, and our policies need to be tailored accordingly.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Bjørg Sandkjær, ASG for Policy Coordination, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“My second point is that timely and reliable data are going to effective planning and conducting censuses at regular intervals and integrating geospatial and other statistical information can enable better monitoring of settlement patterns and access to services. So, indicators that track both people and land, such as population density and built-up land per capita, provide useful information about human interactions with the environment.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) John Wilmoth, Director, Population Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“Today's release provides estimates and projections of human settlements based on a new standard methodology called the Degree of Urbanization, which depicts a rural urban continuum. It uses population data mapped to territorial grid cells of one square kilometer to classify all land area into seven categories, ranging from mostly uninhabited rural areas to densely populated cities.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Sara Hertog, Population Affairs Officer, Population Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“In 2025, 45 per cent of the world's 8.2 billion people live in cities, 36 per cent live in towns, and the remaining 19 per cent live in rural areas. Our projections to 2050 indicate that two thirds of the growth of the world's population will occur in cities, and that most of the remaining one third of growth will occur in towns. The size of the global rural population is expected to peak sometime in the 2040s and then begin to gradually decline.”
12. Wide shot, presentation
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Sara Hertog, Population Affairs Officer, Population Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“Today in 2025 cities has more people than either towns or rural areas in 104 countries or areas. So that's just under half of the 237 countries or areas for which we have produced estimates and projections in the WUP.”
14. Wide shot, presentation
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Sara Hertog, Population Affairs Officer, Population Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
“More than half of the mega cities are in Asia. Jakarta, Indonesia, with nearly 42 million inhabitants, is the world's most populous city today. But projections indicate that fast growing Dhaka, Bangladesh, will surpass Jakarta to become the world's largest city by 2050.”
16. Wide shot, presentation
17. Wide shot, end of press briefing
“Fast-growing Dhaka, Bangladesh, will surpass Jakarta to become the world's largest city by 2050,” The United Nations on Tuesday unveiled its World Urbanization Prospects 2025, outlining how population growth and shifting settlement patterns will reshape cities, towns and rural areas over the coming decades.
Bjørg Sandkjær, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) emphasized that “sustainable development requires integrated planning that treats cities, towns and rural areas as interconnected and interdependent,” adding that policies must “recognize the unique role of all settlement types” and be tailored to their specific needs.
She also underscored the importance of data-driven decision-making. “Timely and reliable data are going to effective planning,” she said, noting that regular censuses and the integration of geospatial and statistical information can enable better monitoring of settlement patterns and access to services.
Indicators tracking population density and built-up land per capita, she added, “provide useful information about human interactions with the environment.”
John Wilmoth, Director of the Population Division, said the release provides estimates and projections based on a new standard methodology called the Degree of Urbanization, which maps population data into one-square-kilometer grid cells and classifies all land areas into seven categories ranging from mostly uninhabited rural areas to densely populated cities.
Sara Hertog, a Population Affairs Officer with DESA, detailed the report’s latest demographic findings. “In 2025, 45 per cent of the world's 8.2 billion people live in cities, 36 per cent live in towns, and the remaining 19 per cent live in rural areas,” she said.
By 2050, “two thirds of the growth of the world's population will occur in cities,” with most of the rest happening in towns. The global rural population, she noted, is expected to peak in the 2040s before gradually declining.
Hertog added that “cities have more people than either towns or rural areas in 104 countries or areas,” representing nearly half of all locations for which UN estimates were produced.
She also highlighted the concentration of mega-cities in Asia. “Jakarta, Indonesia, with nearly 42 million inhabitants, is the world's most populous city today,” she said, but projections indicate that “fast-growing Dhaka, Bangladesh, will surpass Jakarta to become the world's largest city by 2050.”
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