Our World
in Data
It’s Giving Season. Help us do more with a donation.
Data

World regions in the SDG framework of the United Nations

See all data and research on:

About this data

World regions in the SDG framework of the United Nations
The regions used in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework.
Source
Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division (2021) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
June 24, 2024
Next expected update
June 2025
Date range
2024–2024

Related research and writing

Our World in Data - Research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems

Definitions of world regions

Our World in Data team

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The list of geographic regions presents the composition of geographical regions used by the Statistics Division in its publications and databases. Each country or area is shown in one region only. These geographic regions are based on continental regions; which are further subdivided into sub-regions and intermediary regions drawn as to obtain greater homogeneity in sizes of population, demographic circumstances and accuracy of demographic statistics.

Retrieved on
June 24, 2024
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/overview/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49) (2021), Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

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: World regions in the SDG framework of the United Nations”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-regions-sdg-united-nations [online resource]
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:

Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division (2021) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division (2021) – processed by Our World in Data. “World regions in the SDG framework of the United Nations” [dataset]. Statistical Services Branch - UN Statistics Division, “Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)” [original data]. Retrieved December 12, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-regions-sdg-united-nations