Population below five meters above sea level — all countries

Population below five meters above sea level — Panama

Population below five meters above sea level in Panama in 2015 — 6%. Ranked 147 in the world out of 215. Since 1990, the indicator has risen by 1.62 pp.

2015 6% +0.7 pp vs 2000
World rank 147of 215
Period maximum 6%2015
Period minimum 4.38%1990

Trend over time

1990–2015 · % of population

Population below five meters above sea level — Panama, 1990–201544.555.566.51990199319961999200220052008201120141990: 4.38%2000: 5.3%2015: 6%
Change over the period: +1.62 pp Annual average: 0.06 pp

Comparison, 2015

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

Panama 6%
World 4.06%
Central America computed 1.25%
High-income countries computed 4.19%
Population below five meters above sea level — Panama, by year Panama All countries CSV XLSX
Year % Change, pp
2015 6
2000 5.3
1990 4.38

Central America, 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.