Around one-in-four adults in the world smoke tobacco.
But where in the world is smoking most common?
In the map, we see the share of adults aged 15 years and older, who smoke tobacco.
There are a number of countries where more than a third of the population smokes. The places where many people smoke are clustered in regions. South-East Asia, the Pacific islands, and parts of Europe.
In some countries, very few people smoke.
Several factors influence the prevalence of smoking. One is prosperity: if we look at the relationship between smoking prevalence and income, we find that richer countries tend to smoke more. But as you see in this correlation, there are very large differences at each level of income.
Smoking rates are high across many countries, but we know from the history of many countries that this can change quickly. Many of today’s high-income countries had much higher smoking rates in the past and have seen a large reduction.
The prevalence of smoking also differs significantly between men and women. Here, we look at sex differences in smoking across the world.
