Countries with the highest neonatal mortality rates

Countries with the highest neonatal mortality rates is a live ranking of the top 50 entries in health and wellbeing by Neonatal mortality rate, built from public data published by Our World in Data. It was last refreshed on 2026-11-02. This is the first published snapshot; from the next refresh onwards the page will also show movers, new entries and a rank history chart.

South Sudan currently holds #1 with 4.02 deaths per 1,000 live births. Pakistan is second with 3.76 deaths per 1,000 live births, which puts the leader 7% ahead. Somalia completes the top three with 3.49 deaths per 1,000 live births. Together the top three account for about 33% of the combined top-10 total, which gives a quick sense of how concentrated this ranking is.

How it is measured: Deaths of babies in their first 27 days of life per 1,000 live births, both sexes. Our World in Data chart "neonatal-mortality-rate-gho" (column neonatal_mortality_rate__per_1000_live_births__sex_both_sexes__age_group_0_27_days); most recent year per country within the last five years of data, regional aggregates excluded. Caveat: Years differ by country; the chart page documents the original source and its limitations. Data from Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0) and the sources it cites. The full top 50 is on this page, with positions 11 to 50 one click away, and each entry links to its own profile showing every ranking it appears in.

Use this page to check who is number one right now, compare any two entries head to head, or test yourself with the quiz, which asks you to name all ten in three minutes. Year-end archives are available for 2026, freezing the ranking as it stood at the close of each year. Top10Earth never estimates or edits a value: each number is fetched from its source, hashed, stored and ranked by software, then checked by a quality gate before it is published. If a refresh fails the gate, the previous snapshot stays live and the problem is reviewed by a person.