Spinning up the globe & fetching literacy data…
Global Tracker

Youth Literacy Around the World

Share of young people who can read and write, for every country — plus all 50 U.S. states and every Florida county. Drag to spin, scroll to zoom, click near a pin for detail.
Source: World Bank Open Data · updating…
Literacy rate
40%60%80%100%
Pulsing ring = lowest rates (<70%)
Faded pins are high-income countries the World Bank does not survey (youth literacy assumed ≈99%).
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Global average
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Countries
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Lowest

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Every place

The data, in full

Every country's youth-literacy rate, plus high-school completion for all 50 U.S. states and every Florida county. Click a column to sort, or a row to fly there on the globe.

Place Literacy Year

About the data

How to read this map

Each pin is a country, placed at its geographic center and colored by its youth-literacy rate on a blue scale — deep navy for the lowest rates, bright blue for near-universal. Countries below 70% get a pulsing red ring to mark where the need is greatest.

15–24

Who it measures

The World Bank indicator SE.ADT.1524.LT.ZS — the percentage of people ages 15–24 who can read and write a short, simple statement about everyday life.

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Global average

Averaged across every country with a reported survey value. The most recent survey per country is used, back to the year 2000.

≈99%

The estimated pins

High-income countries (the US, Canada, most of Europe, Japan…) aren't surveyed because youth literacy is near-universal. They're shown as a clearly-flagged ≈99% estimate so the map stays complete and honest.

Country pins use World Bank youth-literacy data (ages 15–24), fetched live by data.php and cached for 24 hours. U.S. state and Florida county pins use a closely-related literacy proxy — the share of adults who completed high school (U.S. Census / ACS 2019–23, via USDA ERS) — so zooming into the United States reveals every state and all 67 Florida counties.