Last week, a wonderful dataset got released that I will dissect for many a column.

Today, we start by understanding the forces shaping the urban future of Australia.

The dataset in question comes straight from the UN Population Division, which gave us the amazing World Urbanisation Prospects 2025. 

The WUP dataset not only has a fun acronym but it’s amazing in so far as it is of the few truly comparable, truly global sources that lets us understand where people actually live and where they are moving. 

Every few years, the UN takes a deep breath, reviews satellite data, national censuses, thousands of administrative definitions and local boundary changes, then stitches everything together into a consistent global picture.

The 2025 update is full of methodological refinements. Dozens of cities have been reclassified. Boundaries have been harmonised.

The UN now includes more precise estimates of peri-urban growth, small urban settlements and transitions between rural and urban space.

If you want to compare Lagos to London or Launceston to Los Angeles, this is about as close to apples with apples as it gets. 

And here is the headline for Australia. Not only are we an urban nation (by some measures, maybe even the most highly urbanised country), but we are still urbanising. 

The WUP data confirms that the share of Australians living in cities has climbed steadily for the last seven-plus decades and is projected to rise even further.

Cities will continue to absorb the majority of population growth.

Rural Australia, in relative terms, remains stable.

The surprise is in the middle – what we tend........

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