Population below five meters above sea level — all countries

Population below five meters above sea level — Netherlands

Population below five meters above sea level in the Netherlands in 2015 — 53.69%. Ranked 210 in the world out of 215. Since 1990, the indicator has risen by 2.4 pp.

2015 53.69% +1.3 pp vs 2000
World rank 210of 215
Period maximum 53.69%2015
Period minimum 51.29%1990

Trend over time

1990–2015 · % of population

Population below five meters above sea level — Netherlands, 1990–2015515253541990199319961999200220052008201120141990: 51.29%2000: 52.39%2015: 53.69%
Change over the period: +2.4 pp Annual average: 0.1 pp

Comparison, 2015

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

Netherlands 53.69%
World 4.06%
Western Europe computed 6.56%
High-income countries computed 4.19%
Population below five meters above sea level — Netherlands, by year Netherlands All countries CSV XLSX
Year % Change, pp
2015 53.69
2000 52.39
1990 51.29

Western Europe, 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.