World Development Indicators
Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)
Reported irregularly, so a sparse series is the source being honest.
- lowest fifth
- middle
- highest fifth
- not reported
21 member states have a figure and no shape on this map. The outlines come from Natural Earth’s 110m dataset, which has no polygon for a state below a certain size, and almost all of these are small island or micro-states. They are not missing from the data — only from the picture: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Barbados, Comoros, Cabo Verde, Grenada, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Malta, Mauritius, Naoero, Palau, Singapore, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Tonga, Tuvalu, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa.
How the World Bank defines it
Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.
World Bank, World Development Indicators — SE.ADT.LITR.ZS, CC BY 4.0.
Highest
| State | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Korea, Dem. People's Rep. | 100 | 2008 |
| Tuvalu | 100 | 2022 |
| Uzbekistan | 100 | 2022 |
| Russian Federation | 99.93 | 2021 |
| San Marino | 99.91 | 2022 |
| Latvia | 99.9 | 2011 |
| Turkmenistan | 99.9 | 2022 |
| Estonia | 99.89 | 2011 |
| Belarus | 99.87 | 2019 |
| Palau | 99.8448 | 2020 |
| Armenia | 99.84 | 2023 |
| Lithuania | 99.82 | 2011 |
| Azerbaijan | 99.78 | 2023 |
| Kazakhstan | 99.73 | 2009 |
| Tajikistan | 99.7299 | 2009 |
Lowest
| State | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| South Sudan | 26.83 | 2008 |
| Chad | 30.63 | 2019 |
| Niger | 35.61 | 2022 |
| Mali | 35.63 | 2024 |
| Yemen, Rep. | 37.09 | 1994 |
| Afghanistan | 37.27 | 2021 |
| Guinea | 39.62 | 2018 |
| Burkina Faso | 41.5671 | 2023 |
| Central African Republic | 42.44 | 2019 |
| Sierra Leone | 43.58 | 2019 |
| Cote d'Ivoire | 50 | 2021 |
| Senegal | 50.36 | 2023 |
| Benin | 51.38 | 2022 |
| Gambia, The | 51.64 | 2021 |
| Sudan | 53.52 | 2008 |
Each state is shown at the most recent year it reports, which is not the same year for every state. Comparing a 2025 figure with a 2019 one is comparing different years, and this table does not pretend otherwise.
Where the numbers come from
Data API, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), uri: https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources, note: The data are obtained through the UIS API. Detailed documentation is available at: https://api.uis.unesco.org/api/public/documentation/, publisher: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), type: Excel (bulk file), date accessed: 2026-03-19, date published: 2026-02