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Data

World regions according to the World Health Organization

About this data

World regions according to the World Health Organization
Regions as defined by the World Health Organization.
Source
World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 1, 2023
Date range
2023–2023

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – Countries/areas by WHO region

Retrieved on
August 22, 2025
Retrieved from
https://apps.who.int/violence-info/Countries%20and%20areas%20by%20WHO%20region%20-%2012bfe12.pdf

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

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  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: World regions according to the World Health Organization”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260507-165630/grapher/who-regions.html [online resource] (archived on May 7, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization – processed by Our World in Data. “World regions according to the World Health Organization” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Countries/areas by WHO region” [original data]. Retrieved May 7, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260507-165630/grapher/who-regions.html (archived on May 7, 2026).

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