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Number of species threatened with extinction

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About this data

Number of species threatened with extinction
The IUCN Red List has assessed only a small share of the total known species in the world. This means the number of species threatened with extinction is likely to be a significant underestimate of the total number of species at risk. This is particularly true for understudied groups such as insects, plants and fungi. 'Threatened' species are those that are categorized as 'Critically endangered', 'Endangered' or 'Vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List.
Source
International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 5, 2025
Date range
2025–2025
Unit
species

About this data

Number of species threatened with extinction
The IUCN Red List has assessed only a small share of the total known species in the world. This means the number of species threatened with extinction is likely to be a significant underestimate of the total number of species at risk. This is particularly true for understudied groups such as insects, plants and fungi. 'Threatened' species are those that are categorized as 'Critically endangered', 'Endangered' or 'Vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List.
Source
International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 5, 2025
Date range
2025–2025
Unit
species

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species – IUCN Red List Summary Statistics Table 1a

Number of species evaluated in relation to the overall number of described species, and numbers of threatened species by major groups of organisms.

Retrieved on
September 5, 2025
Retrieved from
https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/content/attachment_files/2025-1_RL_Table_1a.pdf
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. 2025. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2025-1. https://www.iucnredlist.org. Accessed on [27 March 2025]

Number of species evaluated in relation to the overall number of described species, and numbers of threatened species by major groups of organisms.

Retrieved on
September 5, 2025
Retrieved from
https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/content/attachment_files/2025-1_RL_Table_1a.pdf
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. 2025. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2025-1. https://www.iucnredlist.org. Accessed on [27 March 2025]

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Number of species threatened with extinction”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2022) - “Biodiversity”. Data adapted from International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250909-093708/grapher/number-species-threatened.html [online resource] (archived on September 9, 2025).
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Number of species threatened with extinction” [dataset]. International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, “IUCN Red List Summary Statistics Table 1a” [original data]. Retrieved September 18, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250909-093708/grapher/number-species-threatened.html (archived on September 9, 2025).