World Urbanization Prospects: the 1994 Revision

THIS IS THE latest edition in the long series of United Nations publications that bring together statistics on urban, rural and city populations. Its subtitle sums up its coverage - “Estimates and projections of urban and rural populations and of urban agglomerations”. There are two introductory sections, the first discussing the world’s cities in the light of the latest census findings and estimates, the second discussing urban and rural population growth and size. This includes a special interest in “mega-cities” (which are defined as cities with 8 million or more inhabitants) and in the world’s largest cities. There follows a section on the data sources used for the statistical tables, and then the tables themselves. These include figures or projections for the rural, urban and national populations of all countries and for their levels of urbanization for every five years between 1950 and 2025; population tables for all cities with 750,000 or more inhabitants in 1990 - with populations given for every five years between 1950 and 2015; and tables listing population growth rates for each five-year period for national populations, rural and urban populations and individual city populations. Among the many other tables in this report are a series showing the distribution of the urban population between different size urban centres for each of the world’s regions between 1950 and 2015. The data in this report, and in other reports of the Population Division, can be purchased on magnetic tape or on IBM-PC diskettes. For instance, the data diskette on the population of the urban agglomerations (1950-2015) costs $100 while the data diskette on urban and rural areas (1950-2025) costs $150. For orders or more details, write to the Director, Population Division, DESIPA, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, USA