List of Latin American countries by Human Development Index

The following tables covers the list of Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

n countries by Human Development Index

Human Development Index

The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...

as released by the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report

Human Development Report

The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...

. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy

Life expectancy

Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...

, literacy

Literacy

Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

and standards of living

Standard of living

Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods , or measures of health such as...

for regions worldwide.

Countries fall into four broad categories based on their HDI: very high (for developed countries), high and medium (for developing countries) and low (for least developing countries).

2010 report

The 2010 report by UNDP was released on November 4, 2010, and calculates HDIs based on estimates for 2010.

High Human Development
Rank	Country	HDI	World rank
1	Chile	0.783	45
2	Argentina	0.775	46
3	Uruguay	0.765	52
4	Panama	0.755	54
5	Mexico	0.750	56
6	Costa Rica	0.725	62
7	Peru	0.723	63
8	Brazil	0.699	73
9	Venezuela	0.696	75
10	Ecuador	0.695	77
11	Colombia	0.689	79
Medium Human Development
Rank	Country	HDI	World rank
12	Dominican Republic	0.663	88
13	El Salvador	0.659	90
14	Bolivia	0.643	95
15	Paraguay	0.640	96
16	Honduras	0.604	106
17	Nicaragua	0.565	115
18	Guatemala	0.560	116
Low Human Development
19	Haiti	0.404	145

2009

The 2009 report by UNDP was released on October 5, 2009, and covers the period up to 2007. It was titled "Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development". Position in the world rank appears in parenthesis.

Chile 0.878 (44)
Argentina 0.866 (49)
Uruguay 0.865 (50)
Cuba 0.863 (51)
Mexico 0.854 (53)
Costa Rica 0.853 (54)
Venezuela 0.844 (58)
Panama 0.840 (60)
Brazil 0.813 (75)
Colombia 0.807 (77)

Peru 0.806 (76)
Ecuador 0.806 (80)
Dominican Republic 0.877 (90)
Paraguay 0.706 (101)
El Salvador 0.747 (106)
Honduras 0.732 (112)
Bolivia 0.729 (113)
Guatemala 0.704 (122)
Nicaragua 0.699 (124)
Haiti 0.532 (149)

Past top countries

The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the index.

2009 – Chile
2008 – Chile
2007 – Chile
2006 – Chile
2005 – Chile
2000 – Argentina
1995 – Argentina
1990 – Argentina
1985 – Argentina
1980 – Argentina

Education index (2007)

Rank	Country	Education Index	World rank	Comparable country (outside the region)
1	Cuba	0.993	5	New Zealand
2	Uruguay	0.955	31	Germany
3	Argentina	0.946	37	Czech Republic
4	Venezuela	0.921	46	Tonga
5	Chile	0.919	48	Kyrgyzstan
6	Bolivia	0.892	64	Bahrain
7	Brazil	0.891	68	Serbia
8	Peru	0.891	69	Serbia
9	Panama	0.888	72	Thailand
10	Mexico	0.886	77	Seychelles
11	Costa Rica	0.883	83	Maldives
12	Colombia	0.881	84	Hong Kong
13	Paraguay	0.871	92	Kuwait
14	Ecuador	0.866	95	Fiji
15	Dominican Republic	0.839	106	Mauritius
—	Latin America Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...	0.810	—
16	Honduras	0.806	116	Vietnam
17	El Salvador	0.796	117	Iran
18	Nicaragua	0.760	126	Tunisia
19	Guatemala	0.723	133	Vanuatu
20	Haiti	0.588	152	Rwanda

Income index (2007)

Rank	Country	Income Index	World rank	Comparable country (outside the region)
1	Mexico	0.826	46	Libya
2	Chile	0.823	47	Libya
3	Argentina	0.815	50	Malaysia
4	Venezuela	0.801	53	Kingdom of Romania
5	Panama	0.790	55	Kingdom of Montenegro
6	Uruguay	0.788	57	Mauritius
7	Costa Rica	0.783	60	Belarus
8	Brazil	0.761	67	South Africa
9	Colombia	0.743	69	Republic of Macedonia
10	Peru	0.728	72	Azerbaijan
11	Ecuador	0.719	79	Tunisia
12	Cuba	0.703	83	Ukraine
13	Dominican Republic	0.702	85	Ukraine
14	El Salvador	0.678	87	Armenia
—	Latin America Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...	0.644	—
15	Guatemala	0.638	99	Georgia (country)
16	Paraguay	0.633	102	Samoa
17	Bolivia	0.624	105	Sri Lanka
18	Honduras	0.607	107	Tonga
19	Nicaragua	0.542	119	Vietnam
20	Haiti	0.408	149	Tanzania

Life expectancy index (2007)