Until the late 20th century, most citizens in many countries—especially the United States and much of the world—lived in rural areas, small towns, or compact communities rather than large modern cities.

How most citizens lived (big picture)

  • The majority of people were farmers, small-scale producers, or lived in villages centered on local trade and agriculture.
  • Daily life was local: most needs (food, fuel, basic goods) were met within a short distance of home, and people rarely traveled far.
  • Communities were small enough that you regularly saw familiar faces and often knew most people in your area.

When this started to change

  • Industrialization and the growth of factories in the 19th and early 20th centuries began pulling people from farms into towns and cities.
  • In the United States, for example, it was only around the 1920 census that a majority lived in urban areas, marking a major shift away from a mostly rural society.
  • Globally, a very large share of people remained rural and in conditions close to extreme poverty well into the 20th century, with urban majorities and higher living standards becoming common only in the late 1900s.

Quality of life context

  • For most of pre-20th-century history, the typical person lived with limited material comfort, high exposure to disease, and low income, often close to what we now call extreme poverty.
  • While elites in cities might enjoy better housing and imported goods, the “average” citizen or subject was usually a peasant, small farmer, or laborer with few resources and little security.

TL;DR: Until the late 20th century, most citizens in many countries lived in rural, small-community settings, often as farmers or local workers, with modest living standards and largely local, face-to-face social worlds.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.