WORLD MIGRATION REPORT 2015 - Urbanization, Rural–urban Migration and Urban Poverty

In most parts of the world, both the rates of urban population growth and the rates of urbanisation have been declining, but the absolute number of people added to the world’s urban population each year has been increasing, primarily because of the growth of urban populations in Africa and Asia. [...] Alternatively, if the total population is not changing but the urban share is increasing, all urban population growth is the result of urbanisation, and the rate of urbanisation (the rate of increase in the share of the population living in urban areas) is equal to the rate of urban population growth. [...] In most urbanising countries the overall population is also growing, and it is possible to distinguish the share of urban population growth that is the result of urbanisation from the share that is the result of total population growth (to a close approximation, the rate of urban population growth equals the rate of urbanisation plus the rate of overall population growth). [...] The first set of rows are estimates of the percentage population growth per year, the second set are estimates of the percentage growth in the urban share per year, and the third set are estimates of the percentage growth in urban population per year. [...] The rates of population growth and urbanisation show that by the last quarter of the 20th century, all regions of the world were in the later phases of their demographic and urban transitions, with declining rates of population growth and urbanisation.