Data
Share of urban population using at least basic water services
What you should know about this indicator
- Easy and reliable access to drinking water is fundamental to human health and well-being. Improved drinking water sources reduce the risk of contamination and the spread of waterborne diseases.
- Having access to water on premises and when needed reduces the time and effort spent collecting water, which frees up time for education, work and participation in community life.
- Basic drinking water services are defined as an improved drinking water source, provided collection time is not more than 30 minutes for a roundtrip including queuing.
- Improved drinking water sources are those that have the potential to deliver safe water by nature of their design and construction, and include: piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, rainwater, and packaged or delivered water.
- This data is provided by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP). They compile data from nationally representative household surveys and censuses, administrative data and service provider data. To learn more, see the JMP Methodology.
- This data reflects actual service use, which is directly linked to health outcomes and can be consistently measured across countries using household surveys. It is possible to theoretically have access to some kind of water and sanitation infrastructure, but not use them for daily needs. Therefore we refer to "use" or "using" rather than "access" to better reflect the underlying data.
Share of urban population using at least basic water services
Proportion of people who use an improved drinking water source, which is either located on their premises, or at a collection point, which takes no more than 30 minutes for a roundtrip.
Source
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
December 8, 2025
Next expected update
December 2027
Date range
2000–2024
Unit
%
Explore charts that include this data
What you should know about this indicator
- Easy and reliable access to drinking water is fundamental to human health and well-being. Improved drinking water sources reduce the risk of contamination and the spread of waterborne diseases.
- Having access to water on premises and when needed reduces the time and effort spent collecting water, which frees up time for education, work and participation in community life.
- Basic drinking water services are defined as an improved drinking water source, provided collection time is not more than 30 minutes for a roundtrip including queuing.
- Improved drinking water sources are those that have the potential to deliver safe water by nature of their design and construction, and include: piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, rainwater, and packaged or delivered water.
- This data is provided by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP). They compile data from nationally representative household surveys and censuses, administrative data and service provider data. To learn more, see the JMP Methodology.
- This data reflects actual service use, which is directly linked to health outcomes and can be consistently measured across countries using household surveys. It is possible to theoretically have access to some kind of water and sanitation infrastructure, but not use them for daily needs. Therefore we refer to "use" or "using" rather than "access" to better reflect the underlying data.
Share of urban population using at least basic water services
Proportion of people who use an improved drinking water source, which is either located on their premises, or at a collection point, which takes no more than 30 minutes for a roundtrip.
Source
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
December 8, 2025
Next expected update
December 2027
Date range
2000–2024
Unit
%
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Share of urban population using at least basic water services”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2021) - “Clean Water and Sanitation”. Data adapted from World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260109-172523/grapher/urban-population-with-improved-water.html [online resource] (archived on January 9, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (2025) – processed by Our World in DataFull citation
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Share of urban population using at least basic water services” [dataset]. World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, “WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) 2000-2024 report” [original data]. Retrieved January 9, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260109-172523/grapher/urban-population-with-improved-water.html (archived on January 9, 2026).