The countries and areas identified as statistical units by the Statistics Division of the United Nations
and covered by the above estimates and projections, are grouped geographically into six major areas:
Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; Northern America; and Oceania. Those major
areas are further divided geographically into 21 regions. In addition, the regions are summarized, for
statistical convenience, into two general groups―more developed and less developed―on the basis of
demographic and socio-economic characteristics. The less developed regions include all regions of
Africa, Asia (excluding Japan), Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania (excluding Australia and
New Zealand). The more developed regions include all other regions plus the three countries excluded
from the less developed regions. The group of least developed countries, as defined by the United Nations
General Assembly in its resolutions (59/209, 59/210 and 60/33) in 2007, comprises 49 countries. See
Annex II for further detail.