Life Expectancy
Life Expectancy by country
Commentary
Notable countries
Monaco leads the ranking at 86.4 years, followed closely by San Marino, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Andorra, showing a strong concentration of the highest life expectancy values in Europe. Japan, South Korea, Malta and Italy also appear among the top performers. At the other end, Nigeria has the lowest value at 54.5 years, with Chad, Central African Republic, Lesotho and South Sudan also near the bottom. A notable surprise is that small European states dominate the very top, while the entire bottom 10 is made up of African countries.
Regional trends
Europe has the highest continental average life expectancy at 80.09 years, well ahead of South America at 75.33 and Asia at 75.07. North America is slightly lower at 74.52, while Oceania stands at 70.29. Africa has the lowest regional average at 65.44 years, creating a gap of more than 14 years compared with Europe. Overall, the data shows a clear regional divide, with Europe clustered at the top and Africa substantially lower.
Data source
The data comes from the World Bank 2023 and measures life expectancy in years at birth. It covers 196 countries with available data. Higher values indicate better outcomes, but the figures are national averages and do not show differences within countries.
Interpretation
Higher life expectancy means people, on average, live longer from birth, which generally reflects stronger health conditions and broader social and economic well-being. Lower values point to shorter average lifespans and weaker overall outcomes on this measure. With a global mean of 73.18 years, the dataset shows both very high longevity in some countries and much lower levels in others. The broad takeaway is that life expectancy is strongly uneven across countries and regions, with especially large gaps between Europe and Africa.