2018 Human Development Index (HDI)

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index focusing on three basic dimensions of human development: the ability to lead a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy at birth; the ability to acquire knowledge, measured by mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling; and the ability to achieve a decent standard of living, measured by gross national income per capita.

To measure human development more comprehensively, the Human Development Report presents four other composite indices. The Inequality-adjusted HDI discounts the HDI according to the extent of inequality. The Gender Development Index compares female and male HDI values. The Gender Inequality Index highlights women’s empowerment. And the Multidimensional Poverty Index measures nonincome dimensions of poverty.

The 2018 Update presents HDI values for 189 countries and territories with the most recent data for 2017. Of these countries, 59 are in the very high human development group, 53 in the high, 39 in the medium and only 38 in the low. In 2010, 49 countries were in the low human development group.

The top five countries in the global HDI ranking are Norway (0.953), Switzerland (0.944), Australia (0.939), Ireland (0.938) and Germany (0.936). The bottom five are Burundi (0.417), Chad (0.404), South Sudan (0.388), the Central African Republic (0.367) and Niger (0.354). The largest increases in HDI rank between 2012 and 2017 were for Ireland, which moved up 13 places, and for Botswana, the Dominican Republic and Turkey, which each moved up 8. The largest declines were for the Syrian Arab Republic (down 27), Libya (26) and Yemen (20).

Top 50 countries in HDI 2018

  1. Norway
  2. Switzerland
  3. Australia
  4. Ireland
  5. Germany
  6. Iceland
  7. Hong Kong, China (SAR)
  8. Sweden
  9. Singapore
  10. Netherlands
  11. Denmark
  12. Canada
  13. United States
  14. United Kingdom
  15. Finland
  16. New Zealand
  17. Belgium
  18. Liechtenstein
  19. Japan
  20. Austria
  21. Luxembourg
  22. Israel
  23. Korea (Republic of)
  24. France
  25. Slovenia
  26. Spain
  27. Czechia
  28. Italy
  29. Malta
  30. Estonia
  31. Greece
  32. Cyprus
  33. Poland
  34. United Arab Emirates
  35. Andorra
  36. Lithuania
  37. Qatar
  38. Slovakia
  39. Brunei Darussalam
  40. Saudi Arabia
  41. Latvia
  42. Portugal
  43. Bahrain
  44. Chile
  45. Hungary
  46. Croatia
  47. Argentina
  48. Oman
  49. Russian Federation
  50. Montenegro

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