In 2022, 51.5% of Bangladesh’s urban population lived in slum households, according to UN-Habitat estimates published through the World Bank. In 2000 the share was 58.3%.
~18.3 million → ~27.6 million
Estimated urban slum residents, 2000 to 2022 (DEEPLAB calculation).
The share has fallen by under seven percentage points in 22 years, while the urban population grew from 31.4 million to 53.7 million. Multiplying the two, we estimate that roughly 9 million more people lived in slums in 2022 than in 2000. Progress in percentage terms has been outpaced by urban growth.
UN-Habitat counts a household as a slum household if it lacks one or more of: improved water, improved sanitation, sufficient living area, durable housing, or security of tenure. The definition therefore covers a wide range of conditions, from insecure tenure to overcrowding, and says nothing on its own about which deprivation matters most.
For policy, the figures suggest that housing, water, sanitation and tenure security need to scale with urban population growth rather than with the existing share alone. Cities will add residents every year, so a flat or slowly falling share means rising absolute need.
Caveat: these are modelled estimates, reported every second year, and the slum share in particular changes smoothly between survey-based benchmarks. The resident counts are our own multiplication of the two published series, not an official figure.
Source: UN-Habitat Urban Indicators Database and UN World Urbanization Prospects, via World Bank WDI.