The designations employed on this web site and associated materials do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The term “country” as used therein also refers, as appropriate, to territories or areas. The names and composition of geographical areas follow those presented in “Standard country or area codes for statistical use” (ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/49/Rev.3), available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm.

Data are presented by region, subregion, country or area using the following four classifications to group countries and areas for statistical purposes into major aggregates. Additional sets of aggregates are also available for major geographic groups, economic and trading groups, political groups, and United Nations related groups (see Special Aggregates).

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) regions: countries and areas are grouped into eight Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) regions as defined by the United Nations Statistics Division and used for The Sustainable Development Goals Report (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/regional-groups/). These regions are further divided into 21 geographic subregions.

Geographic regions: countries and areas are also grouped geographically into six major areas designated as: Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; Northern America, and Oceania.

UN development groups: the designation of “more developed” and “less developed”, or “developed” and “developing”, is intended for statistical purposes and does not express a judgment about the stage in the development process reached by a particular country or area.

• More developed regions comprise Europe, Northern America, Australia/New Zealand and Japan.
• Less developed regions comprise all regions of Africa, Asia (except Japan), Latin America and the Caribbean plus Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
• The group of least developed countries (LDCs) includes 45 countries, located in sub-Saharan Africa (32), Northern Africa and Western Asia (2), Central and Southern Asia (3), Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (4), Latin America and the Caribbean (1), and Oceania (3). Further information is available at https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/least-developed-countries.
• Other less developed countries comprise the less developed regions excluding the least developed countries.
• The group of Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) is composed of 32 countries or territories: 16 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2 in Northern Africa and Western Asia, 8 in Central and Southern Asia, 2 in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, 2 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 2 in Europe and Northern America. Further information is available at https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/landlocked-developing-countries.
• The group of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is composed of 57 countries or territories: 29 in the Caribbean, 20 in the Pacific and 8 in the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea (AIS): Further information is available at https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/small-island-developing-states.

World Bank income groups: the country classification by income level is based on July 2024 GNI per capita from the World Bank (as accessed on 8 May 2024). Further information is available at: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/378834-how-does-the-world-bank-classify-countries and https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519.

You may also download a spreadsheet with extended information about the regions and countries from this link to metadata information for the 2024 revision. See Documentation.