Our latest paper lead by Dr. Josias Láng-Ritter was published at Nature Communications! Our study reveals that Global population datasets, crucial for decision-making by governments and institutions, underestimate rural populations by as much as 53% to 84%.

Accurate estimation of population distribution is essential for social and environmental decision-making as well as research.  Scientists, governments, and international bodies often rely heavily on global population data for activities ranging from resource allocation and infrastructure planning to disease epidemiology and disaster risk management.

Despite this reliance, current population maps fail to accurately represent realities on the ground, particularly in measuring rural populations. In this study, we are the first to show the striking and systematic extent to which these datasets underestimate rural population figures worldwide.

‘We examined ground-truth reports on the displacement of people due to dam projects and were surprised to find that the actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global population data indicates. Depending on the dataset, rural populations were underestimated by between 53% to 84%,’ says postdoctoral researcher Josias Láng-Ritter.

With around 43 percent of the world’s estimated 8.2 billion people living in rural areas, the new findings have far-reaching consequences. Official population estimates published by the UN and the World Bank rely on the same national censuses that are the basis for the flawed population maps.

‘For the first time, our study provides strong evidence that a significant proportion of the rural population may be missing from current global population estimates,’ says Láng-Ritter.

Read the full article here:

Láng-Ritter, J., M. Keskinen & H. Tenkanen (2025). Global gridded population datasets systematically underrepresent rural population. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56906-7