The table chart demonstrates how many people were recorded as literate in different regions of the world (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania) between 2000 and 2004.
From an overall view, it can be observed that Europe had the highest literacy rates, while Africa had the lowest figures. It is also clear that male literacy was higher than female literacy in all regions.
As it can be observed Europe had the highest overall literacy rate at 98.8%, with 99.2% for males and 98.5% for females. Similarly, the Americas and Oceania showed very high literacy levels, both above 93% overall. In these regions, the gap between men and women was very small, with male and female figures being almost equal. The world average was also relatively high at 82.2%, with male literacy at 87.2% and female literacy at 77.3%.
By contrast, Africa had the lowest literacy rate at 62.5% overall. The difference between genders was quite large, as 71.6% of men were literate compared to only 53.9% of women. Asia also had lower figures compared to developed regions, with an overall rate of 79.3%. In this region, 85.9% of males were literate, while the figure for females was significantly lower at 72.5