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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Africa and 
Europe, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Africa are older than 20. In Europe, half are older than 44.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Africa 1,480,770,525 people · Europe 745,602,874
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
AGG × AGG · 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
- 38
- Aged 15 to 64
- 58
- Aged 65 and over
- 4
- Children, under 15
- 15
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 21
AGG × AGG · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Africa would have about 3.9 children and a woman in Europe about 1.4. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 64 years in Africa, about 80 in Europe.
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.
AGG × AGG · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 1.58 billion people in Africa and 743 million in Europe: about twice as many people as Europe.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Africa's population is 7.0 times what it was in 1950, while Europe's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950.
Africa's population is still growing in 2100; Europe's population peaked in 2020. In 2100: 3.81 billion in Africa, 592 million in Europe (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Africa: people | Europe: people | Africa: half older than | Europe: half older than | Africa: children per woman | Europe: children per woman | Africa: life expectancy | Europe: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 227.776 million | 548.867 million | 19.1 | 28.6 | 6.52 | 2.70 | 37.3 | 62.0 |
| 1960 | 283.922 million | 605.817 million | 18.5 | 30.3 | 6.64 | 2.59 | 41.4 | 68.7 |
| 1970 | 365.552 million | 656.999 million | 17.7 | 31.8 | 6.69 | 2.28 | 45.0 | 70.3 |
| 1980 | 483.051 million | 694.279 million | 17.3 | 32.5 | 6.59 | 1.93 | 49.4 | 71.3 |
| 1990 | 643.775 million | 724.139 million | 17.5 | 34.6 | 5.91 | 1.72 | 51.7 | 73.1 |
| 2000 | 830.583 million | 728.164 million | 18.1 | 37.6 | 5.20 | 1.41 | 53.7 | 73.4 |
| 2010 | 1.07222 billion | 738.145 million | 18.9 | 40.3 | 4.89 | 1.61 | 58.8 | 76.2 |
| 2023 | 1.48077 billion | 745.603 million | 20.0 | 43.2 | 4.07 | 1.40 | 63.8 | 79.1 |
| 2030* | 1.72721 billion | 738.433 million | 21.2 | 45.2 | 3.65 | 1.44 | 65.1 | 80.3 |
| 2040* | 2.09565 billion | 722.102 million | 23.3 | 47.4 | 3.15 | 1.48 | 66.8 | 81.8 |
| 2050* | 2.46665 billion | 703.028 million | 25.4 | 47.2 | 2.79 | 1.50 | 68.4 | 83.3 |
| 2060* | 2.82150 billion | 676.160 million | 27.6 | 48.1 | 2.54 | 1.53 | 69.8 | 84.6 |
| 2070* | 3.14522 billion | 648.640 million | 29.9 | 49.0 | 2.35 | 1.54 | 71.2 | 85.9 |
| 2080* | 3.42470 billion | 626.433 million | 32.1 | 48.6 | 2.21 | 1.55 | 72.4 | 87.2 |
| 2090* | 3.64905 billion | 608.693 million | 34.2 | 48.8 | 2.10 | 1.57 | 73.7 | 88.3 |
| 2100* | 3.81388 billion | 592.251 million | 36.1 | 49.6 | 2.02 | 1.58 | 74.9 | 89.5 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AGG − AGG · 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 Africa and which is Europe, 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; Africa is drawn in solid blue squares and Europe in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.
Apparatus
Sources and method
Africa and Europe 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.
How the median age and the “100 people” pictures are worked out, and why the pictures of every country leave the regions out: how the figures here are put together.
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