List of subnational entities by Human Development Index

The following list shows the subnational entities and regions included in the Human Development Index report, sorted by their score. The HDI is a summary measure of human development that considers three dimensions: health, education, and standard of living. It is calculated by taking the geometric mean of three normalized indicators: life expectancy at birth, mean and expected years of schooling, and gross national income per capita. The HDI ranges from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating higher human development. The HDI itself was created by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, and was further used by the UNDP to measure the country's development in its annual Human Development Reports.The index was initially calculated at the country level. The Global Data Lab at Radboud University in the Netherlands launched a subnational HDI (SHDI) iwan 2018, which covers around 1,800 regions in over 160 countries to better reflect the differences within countries.^[1][2] Global Data Lab also provides the Subnational Human the Subnational Gender Development Index (SGDI) and data on income, years of education and life expectancy on the subnational level. The SHDI and SGDI are based on the UNDP's official HDI and GDI, but they use subnational data in addition to national data.

Based on the Human Development Index report,^[3] as compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which does not include states with limited recognition who are non-UN Member States.

Note: The scores here are from the most recent HDI report as of February 3rd, 2026, which used country data from 2023 to calculate the scores.^[4]