Literacy rate, adult total (ages 15+)
- World average (population-weighted)
- 83.5 %
- across 33 countries, 2023
- Latest observation
- 2024
- Source updated
- 13 Jul 2026
- CountryAtlas refreshed
- 11 Sep 2026
- Snapshot 20260911T072322Z
World map
One value per country for the selected year. Hatched = no data.
No data available
Trend
Aggregate across the countries of a group, year by year. Computed by CountryAtlas from country values — no published aggregate is used.
Not enough countries to aggregate this indicator for World.
Highest and lowest
The five leaders and the five trailing countries, 2023.
Top 5
- 99.8 %
- 99.8 %
- 99.6 %
- 99.5 %
- 98.8 %
Source: World Bank — WDI · SE.ADT.LITR.ZS
Bottom 5
Source: World Bank — WDI · SE.ADT.LITR.ZS
Compare countries
Pick up to five countries. Defaults to the three largest economies with data.
No series for the selected countries.
Definition
- Definition
- Unit
- % of people ages 15+ (%)
- Frequency
- Annual
- Aggregation
- none · Higher is better
- Valid range
- 0 – 100
Sources & provenance
Every value on this page comes from one of these series, chosen per country by priority.
- Priority #1Open at source170 countries · 1,121 obs. · → 2024 · CC BY 4.0
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. Source: 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
Series-level selection: for each country the whole series comes from the highest-priority source that has any non-forecast value for it. If a lower-priority source is more than three years fresher, the freshest source wins instead. Non-chosen values are kept as alternatives, never discarded.
Countries without data
Typical reasons: the source does not survey small territories or micro-states; the statistical office reports with a lag of one to three years; the series is only compiled for member countries of the source organisation (OECD, EU, Eurostat); or a value exists but failed validation and is quarantined rather than shown.
Downloads & API
Every observation for this indicator, all countries and years, with provenance columns.
API example
One country, full history. Replace CAN by any ISO3 code or slug.
curl -s "https://www.countryatlas.co/api/v1/series?country=CAN&indicator=literacy-rate-adult" | jq '.series[0] | {country: .country.name, unit, last: .stats.last, source: .provenance.source_name}'