Urban change

East–Southeast Asia is currently one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the world, with countries such as China climbing from 20 to 50% urbanized in just a few decades. However, spatially-and temporally-detailed information on regional-scale changes in urban land or population distribution have not previously been available; previous efforts have been either sample-based, focused on one country, or drawn conclusions from datasets with substantial temporal/spatial mismatch and variability in urban definitions. In collaboration with the World Bank and University of Wisconsin-Madison, WorldPop used consistent methodology, satellite imagery and census data for >1000 agglomerations in the East–Southeast Asian region to map population changes between 2000 and 2010. The data are available here and described in detail in Schneider et al, and this report.

Individual countries