Percentage of population in urban areas The bar chart shows the urbanization percentage in the world in 1950 and compare this with the percentage in 2007 and projected numbers in 2030. Overall, the proportion of world's population residing in cities doubled in 80 years, but this rates is less remarked in some continents than other. In 1950, 64% of the population of North America was urban, this number increased slightly by 15% to 79% in the following 57 years while the urbanization percentage of Europe went up by 21% from 51% over the same period. By contrast, just 15% of the African population was urban in 1950, but it rose significantly to 37% in 2007. This presents one of the highest urbanization rates in the world, even though the percentage of the population of African in urban was still smaller than the world average. These was also a quite similar rise in the urbanization percentage of Asian and Latin America Caribbean comparing with the number of African. It is also clear from the chart that, the urbanization in some continents which have smaller proportion of popularion residing in cities than the world average, such as African and Asia, is projected to be higher than continents which have greater rates , these include Europe, Latin America Caribbean and North America.