Education
Adult literacy
SE.ADT.LITR.ZS · %
Annual series published by the World Bank. The chart carries the trajectory, the table carries the year by year figures, and the definition at the foot of the page is the World Bank's own, quoted as it stands.
Countries compared
8 countries compared out of 142 available.
Latest known value: 99.35% for Italy in 2019, over a series running from 1981 to 2019 and 6 countries compared, from the highest (Spain, 99.7%) to the lowest (South Sudan, 26.83%).
Compare with the other education indicatorsLatest known valueclick to hide
Year by year values
Click the Year header to reverse the order. An empty cell means the World Bank publishes nothing for that country that year.
| Italy | Spain | China | South Sudan | Sudan | El Salvador | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 89.77% | |||||
| 2023 | 89.85% | |||||
| 2022 | 89.35% | |||||
| 2021 | 99.7% | 89.06% | ||||
| 2020 | 98.59% | 96.74% | 89.98% | |||
| 2019 | 99.35% | 89.14% | ||||
| 2018 | 98.44% | 89.01% | ||||
| 2017 | 88.48% | |||||
| 2016 | 98.25% | 88.14% | ||||
| 2015 | 98.14% | 87.97% | ||||
| 2014 | 98.09% | 87.41% | ||||
| 2013 | 98.08% | 86.77% | ||||
| 2012 | 97.89% | 85.46% | ||||
| 2011 | 98.85% | 97.78% | 85.49% | |||
| 2010 | 97.75% | 95.12% | 84.49% | |||
| 2009 | 97.68% | 84.1% | ||||
| 2008 | 97.63% | 26.83% | 53.52% | 83.95% | ||
| 2007 | 97.94% | 82.03% | ||||
| 2006 | 97.75% | 83.56% | ||||
| 2005 | 97.75% | |||||
| 2004 | 97.17% | |||||
| 2001 | 98.42% | |||||
| 2000 | 90.92% | 61.35% | ||||
| 1992 | 74.14% | |||||
| 1991 | 96.49% | |||||
| 1990 | 77.79% | |||||
| 1982 | 65.51% | |||||
| 1981 | 96.46% | 92.81% |
World Bank definition
Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)
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.
Text published by the World Bank for indicator SE.ADT.LITR.ZS, reproduced unchanged.
The same indicator across Europe & Central Asia
Source: World Bank, World Bank Open Data Annual series, fetched server side and cached for 24 hours. The World Bank is never called from your browser.
