Six measures across 187 countries. The literacy views show each country’s most recent reading; enrolment and spending run as annual series.
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics and World Bank. Literacy is measured by census or household survey rather than annually, so each country shows its most recent reading with the year given on hover — some are a decade old. High-income countries stop reporting literacy once it approaches universal, which is why much of Europe, North America and Japan is blank on those views rather than at 100%. Enrolment ratios are gross, counting all enrolled pupils against the population of the relevant age group, so they can exceed 100% where students repeat years or enrol late.
Literacy is not measured annually. It comes from population censuses and household surveys, which most countries run every five to ten years, and some far less often.
A strict year view would therefore show almost nothing — in any given year, fewer than a hundred countries report. So the literacy views show each country’s most recent available reading instead, with the year of that reading given on hover.
This means the map is not a snapshot of one moment. Morocco’s figure is from 2014, Pakistan’s from 2021, India’s from 2024. Comparing them compares readings taken up to a decade apart, and for countries improving quickly, older readings understate current performance.
The alternative — showing only countries that reported in the same year — would produce a map too sparse to be useful. Neither approach is ideal, and the year label is there so you can see which you are looking at.
Norway reports no literacy rate. Nor do Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom or most of Western Europe.
This is not missing data in the usual sense. High-income countries stopped measuring adult literacy once it approached universal, because a census question that returns 99% for decades stops being informative and the survey space is better used elsewhere.
The consequence is that the literacy map shows the developing world in colour and much of the wealthy world in grey. That absence is itself a statement: literacy stopped being a live policy question in those countries long enough ago that they no longer count it.
It also means the map cannot be read as a global ranking. The countries at the top of what is shown are not the world’s most literate; they are the most literate among those still measuring.
Adult literacy — the share of people aged 15 and over who can read and write a short simple statement about their everyday life. The definition is minimal, and functional literacy in a modern economy demands considerably more.
Female literacy — the same measure for women. The hover panel calculates the gap against the male rate, which in several countries exceeds twenty percentage points.
Youth literacy — ages 15 to 24. This is the forward-looking measure: it reflects schooling over the past decade rather than the past half-century, and youth rates are consistently higher than adult rates almost everywhere.
Secondary enrolment — gross enrolment ratio, meaning all enrolled pupils as a share of the population of official secondary school age. It exceeds 100% where students repeat years, start late, or continue past the standard age.
Tertiary enrolment — the same ratio for higher education. The spread here is the widest of any measure on this map, from under 5% to over 100%.
Public spending — government expenditure on education as a share of GDP. Note what this does not tell you: a country spending 6% of a small GDP may spend far less per pupil than one spending 4% of a large one.
Literacy definitions vary between countries. Some assess reading directly; others ask respondents to self-report, which tends to overstate. UNESCO harmonises where it can, but the underlying instruments differ.
The gender gap is the most policy-relevant view. Switching between female literacy and the adult rate shows where the aggregate figure conceals a substantial disparity. Read alongside the women’s employment map, the two track each other closely.
Enrolment is not attainment. A pupil enrolled is not a pupil learning. Enrolment ratios rose substantially across the developing world over the past three decades while learning outcomes, where measured, rose considerably less. This is sometimes called the learning crisis, and enrolment data alone cannot show it.
Youth literacy is the leading indicator. Where youth rates substantially exceed adult rates, the education system is working and the aggregate figure will improve as cohorts age. Where they are similar, it is not.
Related work:
Data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the World Bank.