Who can read and write?
Click any country to see the share of its adults who can read and write — and how that's changed over time.
Global figures are population-weighted across countries that report a literacy rate. “Adults who can't read” is an estimate applied to each country's population and is a rough figure, not an exact count.
Overview
Around 86% of the world's adults can read and write. This map shows the adult literacy rate for every country — from near-universal in high-income nations to under a third in parts of the Sahel.
Key facts
- About 86% of adults worldwide are literate (population-weighted across reporting countries).
- South Sudan has the lowest recorded rate at roughly 27%.
- Some 1.1 billion adults still cannot read or write, most of them women.
- Figures are UNESCO adult (15+) literacy rates; high-income countries, where literacy is near-universal, are not routinely re-measured.
Common questions
How is literacy defined?
The share of people aged 15 and older who can both read and write a short, simple statement about their everyday life, as measured by UNESCO.
Which country has the lowest literacy rate?
Among countries with recent data, South Sudan is lowest at about 27%, followed by other countries in the Sahel region.
Why do some rich countries show no data?
UNESCO does not routinely re-measure literacy in high-income countries because it is effectively universal there; where only an older value exists, we use it if it is 90% or above.
Where does the data come from?
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics, compiled via Our World in Data, with population from the World Bank.
Sources & methodology
Data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, compiled via Our World in Data. The global average is population-weighted across the countries that report this measure; countries without reliable recent data are shown as “no data”.
Last updated: 6 July 2026.