- Global Cities 2026
- Annex B
Data appendix
The indicator set with its sources, the source registers, the licences of every kind of material and the formats of the edition.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Cities are where the systems meet
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Heat wave followed by flooding in a subsiding coastal city
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
B.1The indicator set
| Indicator | Value | Unit | Year | State | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People in cities, Degree of Urbanisation | 45 | % | 2025 | Reported | 1 |
| Urban population, national definitions | 57.8 | % | 2025 | Reported | 2 |
| Urban population | 4.75 | billion | 2025 | Reported | 2 |
| Megacities | 33 | cities | 2025 | Reported | 1 |
| Population in slums, UN database | 24.8 | % | 2022 | Reported | 3 |
| Population in slums, World Bank | 23.2 | % | 2022 | Reported | 2 |
| Urban GHG emissions, consumption basis | 29 | GtCO2-eq | 2020 | Reported | 6 |
| Urban GHG emissions, 2050 moderate case | 34 | GtCO2-eq | 2050 | Scenario | 6 |
| Extreme heat exposure | 119 | billion person-days | 2016 | Reported | 14 |
| People exposed to a 1-in-100-year flood | 1.81 | billion | 2020 grid | Reported | 13 |
| PM2.5, urban, population-weighted | 27.3 | µg/m3 | 2023 | Reported | 3 |
| PM2.5, rural, population-weighted | 15.7 | µg/m3 | 2023 | Reported | 3 |
| Safely managed sanitation, urban | 65.8 | % | 2024 | Reported | 2 |
| Convenient access to public transport | 60.9 | % | 2020 | Reported | 3 |
| Convenient access to open public space | 44.2 | % | 2020 | Reported | 3 |
| Subnational share of public investment | 39.5 | % | 2020 | Reported | 22 |
| Subnational share of public spending | 21.5 | % | 2020 | Reported | 22 |
| Heat-related deaths a year | 489,000 | deaths | 2000 to 2019 | Reported | 10 |
B.2Global source register
The governed source set behind this edition. Each source keeps its authority, coverage, cadence and role; categories describe origin, not truth.
Domains bound by the register
- SYS
- HLT
- CLI
- WAT
- INF
- FIN
- BIO
- ENE
- FOO
- MIN
| Source | Category | Coverage | Period | Cadence | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UN DESA World Urbanization Prospects 20251 | intergovernmental agency | global | 2025 | biennial | settlement |
| World Bank World Development Indicators2 | intergovernmental agency | global | 2025 | annual | urban series |
| UN Statistics Division SDG database3 | UN statistics agency | global | 2020 to 2024 | annual | Goal 11 series |
| SDG Report 2025, Goal 114 | UN agencies | global | 2022 to 2025 | annual | housing, flood, waste |
| IPCC AR6 Working Group III chapter 86 | assessment | global | 2020 | cycle | urban emissions |
| IPCC AR6 Working Group II chapter 67 | assessment | global | 2020 | cycle | urban risk |
| WHO fact sheets8910 | UN agency | global | 2019 to 2026 | as updated | air, road, heat |
| OECD and UCLG observatory22 | intergovernmental organisation | 135 countries | 2020 | triennial | subnational finance |
| UN-Habitat World Cities Report 202412 | UN agency | global | 2024 | biennial | finance, climate |
| Rentschler et al.13 | peer-reviewed | global | 2020 grid | one-off | flood exposure |
B.3Regional reading: cities across ten clusters
Map plates follow with the regional Baseline Editions, when boundary sources and public-safe resolutions are bound. This page gives the regional reading in table form and ranks no region.
| Region | Principal hazards | Systems most exposed | Baseline evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| North America | housing cost burden 21.4% in Europe and Northern America; waste collection near universal | housing, services | SDG Report 20254 |
| South America | urban emissions share 55% to 66% from 2000 to 2015 in Latin America and the Caribbean; waste collection 90.6% | housing, services | IPCC6; SDG Report4 |
| Europe | heat deaths: 36% of the global total and 61,672 excess deaths in 2022; EU buildings directive and mission cities | heat, buildings | WHO10; EU law2023 |
| Eurasia | urban emissions share 57% to 62%, per capita 9.8 tCO2-eq | power, buildings | IPCC6 |
| Middle East and North Africa | housing cost burden 36.9% in Northern Africa and Western Asia; per capita urban emissions 9.6 tCO2-eq in the Middle East | housing, power | SDG Report4; IPCC6 |
| Africa | urban emissions share 28% to 38%; waste collection 62.6% in Sub-Saharan Africa; housing cost burden 43.5% | housing, services | IPCC6; SDG Report4 |
| South Asia | about 390 million people flood-exposed in India; growth concentrated in Asia | flood, housing | Rentschler13; IPCC7 |
| East Asia | about 395 million flood-exposed in China; over one third of shrinking cities are in China | flood, ageing cities | Rentschler13; UN DESA1 |
| ASEAN | Jakarta is the largest city on the new UN method at nearly 42 million; delta subsidence | flood, subsidence | UN DESA1; Nature16 |
| Oceania-Pacific | waste collection 98.9% in Australia and New Zealand | services | SDG Report4 |
B.4City-region card: low-lying delta and coastal cities
- delta
- coastal
- low-lying
- subsiding
- Systems in view
- housing, drainage, power, transport, health
- Defining evidence
- delta surface-elevation loss across 40 deltas16; 48 major coastal cities26
- Couplings
- CLI → WAT flood; WAT → HLT illness; WAT → INF disruption
- Capability evidence
- 110 countries report local risk reduction strategies4
- Gaps
- city-level loss series; adaptation plans in force
- Agenda items
- C-01 · C-07
Subsidence can exceed absolute sea-level rise as the main driver of relative sea-level rise in most of 40 deltas studied this century [16].
SUBSIDENCE
Sinking land
More than 1 billion people in low-lying cities and settlements are expected to be at risk from coastal hazards by 2050 [7].
EXPOSURE
Low-lying settlement
The studies assess regions and delta groups, not individual municipalities, and attribute no liability [16] [26].
LEARNING
Evidence limits
B.5How countries appear in the cities edition
Countries enter the cities edition through the urban chapters of their own national editions, on one card grammar. They are read against peer distributions and thresholds, never ranked.
| Card field | What it shows | Source |
|---|---|---|
| WEFH+B state | each core system against peer distribution bands | national edition |
| Couplings | the national dependency matrix | national edition |
| Risk objects | the national risk portfolio | national edition |
| Capability rungs | the national capability ladder | national edition |
| Evidence age | oldest and newest source dates | national source register |
Editions in the 2026 Baseline programme
26national
countries and unions
10regional
clusters
16global
flagship and sector
20frontier
technology reports
How to read a country card
- Each system is shown against the distribution of its peers, with thresholds where they exist
- Couplings and risk objects come from the country’s own national edition
- Capability rungs record evidence, not a judgement of institutions
- Evidence age is printed, so older national data are visible as such
| Wave | Countries and unions | State |
|---|---|---|
| W0 | Canada | ISSUED |
| W1 | United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, European Union, Switzerland | PLANNED |
| W2 | Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Türkiye, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, African Union, India, China, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia | PLANNED |
B.6Licences
| Material | Licence |
|---|---|
| Text | CC BY 4.0 |
| Data | on the licence of each source; Nexus tables CC BY 4.0 |
| Figures | Nexus figures CC BY 4.0; third-party as credited |
| Maps | boundary source and licence printed on each plate |
| Metadata | CC0 1.0, as Zenodo publishes it |
| Third-party data, figures and text | The source’s own licence, credited where it is used; never relicensed |
| Nexus-authored text, tables and figures: CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0). Map plates print their boundary source and licence. | |
B.7Formats and provenance
| Format | Kind | State | What it is | Identifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web edition | HTML | On this site | Draft in stewardship review; every value resolves to its source. | NR-SECTOR-CITIES-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 |
| Print edition | At release | A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF, signed with the web edition at release. | NR-SECTOR-CITIES-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 | |
| Indicator data | CSV · JSON | On this site | 18 indicators with unit, year, status and source; the machine-readable copy ships with the evidence bundle at release. | NR-SECTOR-CITIES-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE data release v1 |
| Figures | SVG · PNG | On this site | 4 on the web edition: headline figure, figure 1.3, coupling instrument, capability ladder. | FIG-SECTOR-CITIES-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-* |
| Slides | Not recorded | No slide deck is recorded for this edition. | ||
| Evidence brief | HTML · PDF | Not recorded | No evidence brief is recorded for this edition. | |
| Dataset with DOI | DataCite | At release | Concept and version DOI are minted at deposit; none is recorded yet. |
Provenance
- Edition pack
- The edition’s content pack (JSON), from which the print and web editions are built
- Evidence cut
- DC-SECTOR-CITIES-GLOBAL-2026-B0, closed 30 September 2026
- Reproducibility
- sourced values cited; analytical values reproducible from stated parameters
- Self-check
- 14 of 23 at evidence close; a fail on any item blocks release
- Review
- five passes scheduled before release (in Annex C)
- Publisher of record
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium
- Corrections
- Registry correction pathway; upheld corrections are published as notices with a new version
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 1UN DESA Population Division (ed.), World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results (publication page and press release; 45% of 8.2 billion people in cities, 33 megacities, more than 12,000 cities, Degree of Urbanisation). United Nations, New York, November 2025. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 2DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators, API extract of urban population, total population, urban agglomerations, urban access to electricity, clean cooking, safely managed drinking water and sanitation, slum share (database updated 8 October 2026). World Bank, Washington. Observation year 2025 (population) and 2024 (access). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 3UN Statistics Division (ed.), Global SDG Indicators Database, API extract of series EN_LND_SLUM, EN_ATM_PM25, EN_ACS_URB_OPENSP, SP_TRN_PUBL, EN_REF_WASCOL and SD_CPA_UPRDP (release 2026.Q3.G.01). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024 (slums), 2023 (PM2.5) and 2020 (transport, open space). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 6IPCC (ed.), Urban systems and other settlements, chapter 8 in Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC (downloaded chapter, executive summary read). IPCC, Geneva, 2022. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 14Tuholske, C. et al., Global urban population exposure to extreme heat, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(41), e2024792118 (open access full text, PMC). National Academy of Sciences, Washington, 2021. Observation year 2016 (series 1983 to 2016). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 13Rentschler, J., Salhab, M. and Jafino, B.A., Flood exposure and poverty in 188 countries, Nature Communications 13, 3527 (open access full text, PMC). Springer Nature, London, 2022. Observation year 2020 (population grid). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 22OECD and UCLG (eds.), World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment, 2022 highlights (135 countries; 2020 data). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, and United Cities and Local Governments, Barcelona. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 10WHO (ed.), Climate change, heat and health, fact sheet (about 489,000 heat-related deaths a year, 2000 to 2019; Europe summer 2022). World Health Organization, Geneva. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 4United Nations (ed.), The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025, Goal 11 (housing, flood, local risk reduction strategies, waste collection, national urban policies). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024 (indicator data 2010 to 2024). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 7IPCC (ed.), Cities, settlements and key infrastructure, chapter 6 in Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC (downloaded chapter, executive summary read). IPCC, Geneva, 2022. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 8WHO (ed.), Ambient (outdoor) air pollution, fact sheet (4.2 million premature deaths in 2019; 99% of people above guideline levels). World Health Organization, Geneva. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 9WHO (ed.), Road traffic injuries, fact sheet (page dated 20 July 2026; about 1.16 million deaths a year). World Health Organization, Geneva. Observation year 2026 (page date). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 12UN-Habitat (ed.), World Cities Report 2024: Cities and Climate Action, key messages (report page; cities receive less than 20% of climate finance needed). United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 20European Parliament and Council (eds.), Directive (EU) 2024/1275 of 24 April 2024 on the energy performance of buildings (recast), Official Journal of the European Union (downloaded text; Articles 7 and 12 read). Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 23European Commission (ed.), EU Mission: climate-neutral and smart cities (mission page; 112 cities, 107 labelled). European Commission, Brussels. Observation year 2026 (page). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 16Global subsidence of river deltas, Nature (2026), open access full text, PMC. Springer Nature, London. Observation year 2026 (40 deltas, satellite radar). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 26Sinking cities, rising seas, Communications Engineering (2022), commentary on a Nature Sustainability study of relative land subsidence in 48 major coastal cities (open access full text, PMC). Springer Nature, London. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back