Population below five meters above sea level — all countries

Population below five meters above sea level — Kiribati

Population below five meters above sea level in Kiribati in 2015 — 33.53%. Ranked 206 in the world out of 215. Since 1990, the indicator has risen by 1.11 pp.

2015 33.53% +0.67 pp vs 2000
World rank 206of 215
Period maximum 33.53%2015
Period minimum 32.42%1990

Trend over time

1990–2015 · % of population

Population below five meters above sea level — Kiribati, 1990–20153232.53333.5341990199319961999200220052008201120141990: 32.42%2000: 32.86%2015: 33.53%
Change over the period: +1.11 pp Annual average: 0.04 pp

Comparison, 2015

How the value compares with the world and the groups this territory belongs to: Kiribati

Kiribati 33.53%
World 4.06%
Micronesia (subregion) computed 20.93%
Population below five meters above sea level — Kiribati, by year Kiribati All countries CSV XLSX
Year % Change, pp
2015 33.53
2000 32.86
1990 32.42

Micronesia, 2015

The same indicator for neighboring countries — with links to their pages

About the indicator

The share of the population living less than five meters above sea level. The threshold is not arbitrary: this is the zone already threatened by storm surges and, over the coming century, by sea level rise. In absolute numbers the densely populated deltas of Asia come first; by share, island states and the Netherlands — and the latter show that a high share does not equal high risk, since everything depends on whether coastal defenses are in place.

Important: The series is not annual: the World Bank computes it from a digital elevation model for individual benchmark years, the latest of which is 2015, and has not updated it since. No one has fresher data of this kind; the values are best read as an order-of-magnitude estimate.

Source: World Development Indicators (World Bank), license CC BY 4.0.