Share of Internet users in urban areas twice as high as in rural areas

Globally, people in urban areas are twice more likely to use the Internet than those in rural areas. In Africa the gap is greater: one-half of urban dwellers are online, compared with just 15 per cent of the rural population. And in the LDCs, urban dwellers are almost four times as likely to use the Internet as are people living in rural areas (47 per cent versus 13).

Where connectivity is close to universal, the urban-rural gap has almost disappeared, unsurprisingly. Thus in the developed economies the connectivity rate in urban areas (89 per cent) is only four percentage points higher than in rural areas.