We investigated a worldwide prevalence of vitiligo with population- or community-based and hospital-based data. To our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis of 103 studies examining the prevalence of vitiligo. The results of this study showed that the pooled prevalence of 82 population- or community-based studies was 0.2% and of 22 hospital-based studies was 1.8%. The latter data derived from hospital-based surveys was obviously high. The vitiligo prevalence of different areas were 0.1% (0.1%, 0.2%) in Asia, 0.4% (0.1%, 0.7%) in Africa, 0.2% (0.1%, 0.4%) in America, 0.4% (0.2%, 0.5%) in Europe, 1.2% (0.5%, 1.8%) in Oceania (only one study) and 0.1% (0%, 0.1%) in Atlantic, respectively. A relatively high prevalence of vitiligo was found in Africa area and in female patients. The highest prevalence was observed in 0~19 years and the overall prevalence showed a gradually decreased trend with age increment. The prevalence has maintained at a low level in recent years. It showed an inverse trend with age increment in the two types of studies.