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Cross-country literacy rates - World Bank, CIA World Factbook, and other sources
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Additional Information
This long run cross-country dataset combines data from a number of sources. We took the estimates from the World Bank’s WDI as our base, and then extended coverage by adding literacy estimates from the CIA Factbook, as well as several other long-run series, as follows:
Data before 1800: Buringh, E., & Van Zanden, J. L. (2009). Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A long-term perspective from the sixth through eighteenth centuries. The Journal of Economic History. Online here. Observations before 1800 are plotted at the midpoint of the given time range (1475 refers to 1451–1500, 1550 refers to 1501-1600 etc.)Data for 1820 and 1870 (except for the US): Broadberry and O'Rourke (2010) – The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe: Volume 1, 1700-1870 Data for the US: National Center for Education Statistics, online here.
Global estimates for 1820-2000: van Zanden, J.L., et al. (eds.) (2014), How Was Life?: Global Well-being since 1820, OECD Publishing. Online here. Historical estimates for Latin America: OxLAD – Oxford Latin American Economic History Data Base, online here. Most recent estimates for high-income countries, as well as any available estimates for 2016: CIA World Factbook.Further notes:
- All sources rely on the same conceptual definition, but in many cases sources do not agree with one another. Because of this, year to year changes should be interpreted with caution. You can read more about literacy measurement here: https://ourworldindata.org/how-is-literacy-measured
- The World Bank's WDI estimates correspond to UNESCO Institute for Statistics. OxLAD estimates come from several underlying sources (see original documentation for more details).
- For Paraguay in 1982, the OxLAD data source was favoured over the World Bank (WDI) as the latter estimates literacy rates at 78.46%, a much lower estimate compared to neighbouring years for which there was data available.
- Sources for each country-year observation can be found in this table.
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Brazil 2015 93.59 Georgia 2015 100.76 Afghanistan 2015 38.17 Central African Republic 2015 37.75 Indonesia 2015 95.44 Guinea-Bissau 2015 60.77 Jamaica 2015 89.5 Albania 2015 98.55 Gabon 2015 83.24 Mali 2015 33.07 Guyana 2015 88.54 Iraq 2015 80.72 Algeria 2015 80.61 Myanmar 2015 93.09 Laos 2015 80.87 Ecuador 2015 95.52 Macao 2015 96.23 Angola 2015 71.16 Mozambique 2015 59.84 New Caledonia 2015 97.94 Malta 2015 94.07 Cyprus 2015 99.06 Nicaragua 2015 82.47 Morocco 2015 72.71 Croatia 2015 99.27 India 2015 72.23 Bolivia 2015 95.14 Cameroon 2015 75.99 Bosnia and Herzegovina 2015 98.49 Congo 2015 79.31 Botswana 2015 88.22 Chad 2015 40.02 Mexico 2015 95.55 Niger 2015 19.1 Montenegro 2015 99.72 Cote d'Ivoire 2015 43.27 Madagascar 2015 65.66 Argentina 2015 98.09 Chile 2015 97.63 Marshall Islands 2015 98.27 Ghana 2015 77.58 Armenia 2015 100.77 Lebanon 2015 94.05 Egypt 2015 76.84 Aruba 2015 98.52 China 2015 96.36 Latvia 2015 100.89 Hungary 2015 99.38 Cuba 2015 100.71 Lesotho 2015 79.36 Equatorial Guinea 2015 95.2 Haiti 2015 61.69 Nepal 2015 65.66 Libya 2015 91.39 Namibia 2015 91.82 Azerbaijan 2015 100.81 Comoros 2015 78.14 Guinea 2015 30.47 Mauritania 2015 52.12 Democratic Republic of Congo 2015 77.22 Estonia 2015 100.82 Bahrain 2015 96.72 Brunei 2015 97.66 Malaysia 2015 95.64 Cape Verde 2015 88.47 Lithuania 2015 100.82 Bangladesh 2015 61.49 Malawi 2015 66.96 Honduras 2015 88.42 Bulgaria 2015 98.39 Cambodia 2015 78.35 Mauritius 2015 91.62 Belarus 2015 100.72 Dominican Republic 2015 92.47 Kyrgyzstan 2015 100.5 El Salvador 2015 88.65 Kenya 2015 78.02 Maldives 2015 99.32 Macedonia 2015 98.84 Belize 2015 83.78 Liberia 2015 48.6 Iran 2015 87.17 Kuwait 2015 96.12 Ethiopia 2015 49.03 Benin 2015 38.45 Colombia 2015 95.58 Moldova 2015 99.24 Kazakhstan 2015 100.79 Bhutan 2015 64.91 Guatemala 2015 79.07 Eritrea 2015 74.85 Jordan 2015 98.01 Burundi 2015 86.5 Zimbabwe 2015 87.87 Burkina Faso 2015 38.75 Mongolia 2015 98.37 Greece 2015 95.29 Gambia 2015 56.57 Costa Rica 2015 98.65 Italy 2015 99.02 -
Sources
Data Published By: Our World in Data
Data publisher source:Sources for each country-year observation can be found in this table.
Link: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS,https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
