Population below five meters above sea level — all countries

Population below five meters above sea level — Latin America & Caribbean

Population below five meters above sea level in Latin America & Caribbean in 2015 — 2.21%. Since 1990, the indicator has risen by 0.1 pp.

2015 2.21% +0.07 pp vs 2000
World rank
Period maximum 2.21%2015
Period minimum 2.11%1990

Trend over time

1990–2015 · % of population

Population below five meters above sea level — Latin America & Caribbean, 1990–20152.12.152.22.251990199319961999200220052008201120141990: 2.11%2000: 2.14%2015: 2.21%
Change over the period: +0.1 pp Annual average: 0 pp

Comparison, 2015

How the value compares with the world and the groups this territory belongs to: Latin America & Caribbean

Latin America & Caribbean 2.21%
World 4.06%
Population below five meters above sea level — Latin America & Caribbean, by year Latin America & Caribbean All countries CSV XLSX
Year % Change, pp
2015 2.21
2000 2.14
1990 2.11

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.