Youth and adult literacy rates by country (UNESCO UIS)
Youth and adult literacy rates (percent) by country/region and year, from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (https://api.uis.unesco.org/api/public/data/indicators). Each row is one (year, area, indicator): the share of the age group able to read and write — youth 15-24 (LR.AG15T24), adults 15+ (LR.AG15T99), adults 25-64 (LR.AG25T64), and 65+ (LR.AG65T99). Method: keyless UIS Data API v1; modelled series (LR.GALP.*) excluded; rows with qualifier UIS_EST/NAT_EST are estimates. Units: percent. Caveats: survey-based and sparse for many countries; latest 1-2 years provisional and revised; regional aggregates have no iso3 code. Coverage: worldwide, 1970 to 2024, yearly granularity. Provenance: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, CC BY-SA 4.0 — please cite the UIS with the extraction date. Primary key: (indicator_id, area, year). Join keys: iso3 (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3), year. Cadence: refreshed yearly. Sample use: filter indicator_id='LR.AG15T99' and iso3='IND' to track adult literacy in India.
- Rows
- 39,409
- Columns
- 7
- Source cadence
- Yearly
- Last refreshed
- Sep 23, 2026
- Theme
- education
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| year | integer | Reference year of the observation. |
| iso3 | string | ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code; null for UIS regional aggregates. |
| area | string | Country name (resolved from the ISO code via hub.normalize) or the UIS regional aggregate label verbatim; with indicator_id and year forms the primary key. |
| indicator_id | string | UIS indicator code (e.g. LR.AG15T99, CR.1). |
| indicator_label | string | Human-readable UIS indicator label, from the SDG 4 monitoring framework. |
| value_pct | float | Indicator value in percent. (unit: percent) |
| qualifier | string | Data quality flag from UIS: null (reported observation), UIS_EST (UIS estimate) or NAT_EST (national estimate). Absent from the completion-rates dataset, where UIS publishes no estimate flags. |
First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.
| year | iso3 | area | indicator_id | indicator_label | value_pct | qualifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,975 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 68.32 | UIS_EST |
| 1,976 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 68.34 | UIS_EST |
| 1,977 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 68.7 | — |
| 1,978 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 69.75 | — |
| 1,979 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 70.97 | — |
| 1,980 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 72.01 | — |
| 1,981 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 72.9 | — |
| 1,982 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 73.78 | — |
| 1,983 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 74.55 | — |
| 1,984 | — | AIMS: Asia and the Pacific | LR.AG15T24 | Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24 (%) | 75.42 | — |
- Current
20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3 · sha256 83a4371f31c3…
39,409 rows · first snapshot
Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).
curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/unesco_uis/unesco_uis_literacy_rates" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'import requests
ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/unesco_uis/unesco_uis_literacy_rates").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")
# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
print(row)API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/unesco_uis/unesco_uis_literacy_rates
Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.
Where this data comes from and what was made from it. Other people's work shows as counts; only shared projects are named.
Cite this snapshot
Pinned to snapshot 20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3 and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). (2026). Youth and adult literacy rates by country (UNESCO UIS) [Data set, snapshot 20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3, sha256 83a4371f31c3]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-09-23, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/unesco_uis/unesco_uis_literacy_rates?snapshot=20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3
@misc{dz_unesco_uis_unesco_uis_literacy_rates_83a4371f,
title = {{Youth and adult literacy rates by country (UNESCO UIS)}},
author = {{UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)}},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Datazimuts},
howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/unesco_uis/unesco_uis_literacy_rates?snapshot=20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3}},
note = {Snapshot 20260923T064007Z-83a4371f31c3, sha256 83a4371f31c3cf107418d8e982f451a7e66809b23d7148a001db9392cc368459; accessed 2026-09-23}
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