Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Afghanistan and 
Pakistan, side by side
Afghanistan in 2026: half the people are older than 18. Pakistan: half are older than 22.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Afghanistan 41,454,761 people · Pakistan 247,504,496
How to read this: each pyramid stacks a place’s people by age — babies at the bottom, the oldest at the top, men on the left and women on the right. A wide bottom means many children; a wide top means many older people.
Each bar is a share of its own place’s people, so a small country and a large one can be read side by side.
men women projected
AFG × PAK · 2026 · age groups
If each place were 100 people
Shrink each population to 100 people and count them. Dots are children under 15, filled squares are people aged 15 to 64, and open squares are people 65 and over. The picture follows the year slider above.
- Children, under 15
- 42
- Aged 15 to 64
- 55
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
- Children, under 15
- 36
- Aged 15 to 64
- 60
- Aged 65 and over
- 4
AFG × PAK · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
At today's rates, a woman in Afghanistan would have about 4.6 children in her lifetime. In Pakistan, about 3.4. A baby born in Afghanistan this year can expect to live about 67 years. In Pakistan, about 68.
Children per woman, 2026
Each figure is one child: how many children a woman would have in her lifetime at that year’s rates.
The dashed line at 2.1 is about what it takes for each generation to replace the one before it, leaving migration aside.
How long a newborn can expect to live, 2026
Each block is ten years of life, if the death rates of that year stayed the same all life long.
Hatched marks are UN projections (medium variant), not measurements.
AFG × PAK · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 259 million people in Pakistan and 45.0 million in Afghanistan: about 6 times as many people as Afghanistan.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Afghanistan's population is 5.8 times what it was in 1950, while Pakistan's population is 7.2 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Afghanistan's population is still growing in 2100, and Pakistan's population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 130 million in Afghanistan, 511 million in Pakistan (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Afghanistan: people | Pakistan: people | Afghanistan: half older than | Pakistan: half older than | Afghanistan: children per woman | Pakistan: children per woman | Afghanistan: life expectancy | Pakistan: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 7.77618 million | 35.8493 million | 19.4 | 18.3 | 7.25 | 6.80 | 28.2 | 34.3 |
| 1960 | 9.03504 million | 45.7093 million | 18.9 | 19.0 | 7.28 | 6.80 | 32.8 | 44.1 |
| 1970 | 11.2901 million | 60.1667 million | 18.0 | 18.1 | 7.40 | 6.80 | 37.5 | 52.9 |
| 1980 | 13.1693 million | 82.2910 million | 16.8 | 18.1 | 7.64 | 6.73 | 39.3 | 57.2 |
| 1990 | 12.0457 million | 116.156 million | 16.0 | 17.9 | 7.58 | 6.36 | 45.1 | 59.7 |
| 2000 | 20.1303 million | 154.879 million | 15.0 | 18.0 | 7.57 | 5.35 | 55.0 | 61.9 |
| 2010 | 28.2841 million | 199.239 million | 15.6 | 19.8 | 6.20 | 4.40 | 60.7 | 64.4 |
| 2023 | 41.4548 million | 247.505 million | 17.9 | 21.3 | 4.84 | 3.60 | 66.0 | 67.7 |
| 2030* | 50.0394 million | 276.883 million | 19.2 | 22.6 | 4.22 | 3.25 | 67.6 | 68.6 |
| 2040* | 63.3479 million | 324.938 million | 21.5 | 25.0 | 3.56 | 2.87 | 69.5 | 70.0 |
| 2050* | 76.8851 million | 371.864 million | 24.0 | 27.3 | 3.09 | 2.58 | 70.9 | 71.3 |
| 2060* | 90.3627 million | 414.441 million | 26.6 | 29.5 | 2.76 | 2.37 | 72.3 | 72.6 |
| 2070* | 103.417 million | 451.260 million | 29.1 | 31.9 | 2.51 | 2.21 | 73.6 | 74.0 |
| 2080* | 114.674 million | 479.745 million | 31.4 | 34.2 | 2.31 | 2.09 | 74.8 | 75.3 |
| 2090* | 123.305 million | 499.173 million | 33.7 | 36.3 | 2.17 | 2.00 | 76.1 | 76.7 |
| 2100* | 130.217 million | 511.001 million | 35.8 | 38.3 | 2.06 | 1.93 | 77.3 | 78.2 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AFG − PAK · 1950–2100 · every age
Which ages each place has more of
Each column is a year and each row an age, from babies at the bottom to 100 at the top. The shade of a cell shows which place has more of its people at that age — the key beside the picture tells you which shade is Afghanistan and which is Pakistan, and the in-between shade means the same. Because it compares shares, a small place and a large one can be compared fairly.
236 countries · 1950–2100
Where they sit among all countries
Every country in the world, every year from 1950 to 2100. The grey cloud shows where most countries are; Afghanistan is drawn in solid blue squares and Pakistan in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.
More comparisons
Keep exploring
Each place on its own: Afghanistan · Pakistan. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
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Apparatus
Sources and method
Afghanistan and Pakistan are drawn here from one source and one release: the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects 2024, counted through 2023 and projected on its medium variant after that. Two places read off the same tables can be set against each other; two read off different tables cannot.
The working behind the median age, the rounding in the “100 people” pictures and the reason the regions are kept out of the all-country views are all set out in the method.
There are 250 ready-made comparisons on this site. For anything else, name two places in the boxes at the top of the page.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries