The number of smokers worldwide has reached nearly one billion despite anti-smoking campaigns and smoking bans, says the survey conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The increasing number of smokers is connected to active population growth that doubled over the recent 50 years.

According to the experts, the highest smoking rates among men in 2012 were registered in Timor-Leste (61 %) and Indonesia (57 %), followed by Armenia (51.5 %), Russia (51 %) and Cyprus (48 %), medindia.net reported.

As to women, top countries are Greece (34.7) and Bulgaria (31.5%).