Adult Literacy Rate Progress by Region: 1990 vs 2016
About This Dataset
Adult Literacy Rate Progress by Region: 1990 vs 2016Southern Asia made the most dramatic improvement in adult literacy between 1990 and 2016, rising from 46% to 72% - a gain of 26 percentage points. Northern Africa and Western Asia increased by 17 points (64% to 81%), while Eastern and South-Eastern Asia grew from 82% to 96%. Sub-Saharan Africa, despite improving from 52% to 65%, still has the lowest regional adult literacy rate in 2016. Latin America and the Caribbean already had a high base in 1990 at 85%, reaching 94% by 2016. Regions with the lowest starting points made proportionally larger gains, reflecting expanded school access, though significant gaps remain in Africa and Southern Asia.
Key Findings
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics
- Coverage
- 10 entities · 10 observations
- Measure
- Adult Literacy Rate (%)
- Last updated
- 29 June 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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