This is a list of all the countries by the Human Development Index as included in a United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report. The latest report was released on 21 March 2017 and compiled on the basis of estimates for 2015.
In the 2010 Human Development Report a further Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) was introduced. While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)" and "the HDI can be viewed as an index of "potential" human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)".
Methodology
Canada Falls Out of Top 10 Most Developed Countries - Welcome to Kelowna Update - Patrick checks in with "expert" Danny D on why Canada has slipped to 11th in the UN Human Developement Index rankings.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income per capita indicators. A country scores higher HDI when the life expectancy at birth is longer, the education period is longer, and the income per capita is higher. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country. The index was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian economist Amartya Sen. The UN report covers 185 member states of the United Nations (out of 193), along with Hong Kong and Palestine; 8 UN member states are not included because of lack of data. The average HDI of regions of the World and groups of countries are also included for comparison.
Countries fall into four broad human development categories: Very High Human Development, High Human Development, Medium Human Development and Low Human Development.
Because of the new methodology adopted since the 2010 Human Development Report, the new reported HDI figures appear lower than the HDI figures in previous reports.
From 2007 to 2010, the first category was referred to as developed countries, and the last three are all grouped in developing countries. The original "high human development" category has been split into two as above in the report for 2007.
Some older groupings (high/medium/low income countries) that were based on the gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita have been replaced by another index based on the gross national income (GNI) in purchasing power parity per capita.
The only year without a Human Development Report since 1990 was 2012. The latest report was launched on 21 March 2017.
Complete list of countries
- = increase.
- = steady.
- = decrease.
Very high human development
High human development
Medium human development
Low human development
List of countries by continent
Africa
Asia
Europe
North America and the Caribbean
Oceania
South America
List of countries by intercontinental region
Arab League
Commonwealth of Nations
East Asia and the Pacific
European Union
HDI by regions and groups
Countries missing from latest report
