Top Countries Without Sanitation

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 25 October 2011 Time: 12:23 PM ET

Children play over an open sewer in the slum of N-gombe in Lusaka, Zambia.
CREDIT: WaterAid / Anna Kari

According to the United Nations, about 2.6 billion people on Earth go without access to sanitary toilet and sewage facilities. In many cases, people still practice "open defecation," or going in the bush near villages. This practice can be deadly, as bacteria from excrement often get tracked back into the community, contaminating water supplies and spreading disease. [Read full article]

Here are the top countries with sanitation problems, by raw number of people in each country without access to sanitation. All numbers are from the World Health Organization/UNICEF joint monitoring program.

1. India (818 million)

2. China (607 million)

3. Indonesia (109 million)

4. Nigeria (103 million)

5. Pakistan (98 million)

6. Bangladesh (75 million)

7. Ethiopia (71 million)

8. Congo, DR (50 million)

9. Brazil (39 million)

10. Tanzania (32 million)

11. Sudan (27 million)

12. Kenya (27 million)