Life expectancy by region

Seven regional views of life expectancy in 2024, using World Bank published aggregates.

• East Asia & Pacific

  37 countries and economies
  76.7 years
• Europe & Central Asia

  58 countries and economies
  78.6 years
• Latin America & Caribbean

  42 countries and economies
  75.8 years
• Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan

  23 countries and economies
  72.3 years
• North America

  3 countries and economies
  79.2 years
• South Asia

  6 countries and economies
  72.6 years
• Sub-Saharan Africa

  48 countries and economies
  62.8 years

Understanding the groups

These are the current World Bank geographical groupings, including economies at all income levels. Afghanistan and Pakistan are grouped with the Middle East and North Africa in this snapshot. Region membership can change when World Bank classifications are revised.

Regional life expectancy is a published World Bank aggregate. It is not the simple average of the country values in our lists. Read the method.

Sources

1. World Bank WDI: life expectancy at birth, total (CC BY 4.0; accessed 2026-09-14)
2. World Bank WDI: life expectancy at birth, male (CC BY 4.0; accessed 2026-09-14)
3. World Bank WDI: life expectancy at birth, female (CC BY 4.0; accessed 2026-09-14)
4. World Bank country and region metadata (World Bank dataset terms; accessed 2026-09-14)

Life expectancy at birth describes population mortality in a given year. It is not a prediction of how long an individual will live. Independent of the World Bank.