National and international poverty rates are estimated using nationally representative household-level surveys that collect detailed food and nonfood consumption data. Table 2 shows the household surveys that are used by the eight countries in South Asia to estimate poverty rates. Living standards vary considerably among countries in South Asia. Table 3 lists the international extreme poverty rates of each South Asian country, along with their gross national income (GNI) per capita and number of extreme poor. The international extreme poverty rate of each country has been determined by calculating the proportion of individuals whose per capita consumption aggregate is lower than the international poverty line. The GNI per capita for all South Asian countries is below $10,000, ranging from about $1,700 to about $9,700. Maldives and Sri Lanka have the highest and second-highest GNI per capita, respectively, while Afghanistan and Nepal have the lowest and second-lowest, respectively. International extreme poverty rates also vary considerably in the region, largely in line with the patterns observed for GNI per capita, except for India. In Sri Lanka and Bhutan, the international extreme poverty rate is less than 3%. Pakistan and Maldives have an international extreme poverty rate in the range of 7%–8%. Nepal and Bangladesh have the highest international extreme poverty rates, ranging from 14% to 19%. India is one of the few countries in the world for which the World Bank traditionally reports international poverty rates by urban and rural regions; in rural and urban areas of India, 24.8% and 13.4% of the population live below the international extreme poverty line, respectively.⁴