Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Africa and 
India, side by side
Africa in 2026: half the people are older than 20. India: half are older than 30.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Africa 1,480,770,525 people · India 1,438,069,596
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 × IND · 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
- 24
- Aged 15 to 64
- 68
- Aged 65 and over
- 8
AGG × IND · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Africa is at about 3.9 children for each woman, at this year's rates; India is at about 1.9. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. A baby born in Africa this year can expect to live about 64 years. In India, about 73.
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 × IND · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Africa is the larger of the two, with about as many people as India: 1.58 billion to 1.48 billion.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Africa's population is 7.0 times what it was in 1950, while India's population is 4.3 times what it was in 1950.
Africa's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile India's population is expected to peak in 2061. In 2100: 3.81 billion in Africa, 1.51 billion in India (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Africa: people | India: people | Africa: half older than | India: half older than | Africa: children per woman | India: children per woman | Africa: life expectancy | India: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 227.776 million | 346.279 million | 19.1 | 21.0 | 6.52 | 5.73 | 37.3 | 41.2 |
| 1960 | 283.922 million | 435.990 million | 18.5 | 20.2 | 6.64 | 5.92 | 41.4 | 45.6 |
| 1970 | 365.552 million | 545.864 million | 17.7 | 19.1 | 6.69 | 5.62 | 45.0 | 48.6 |
| 1980 | 483.051 million | 687.354 million | 17.3 | 19.9 | 6.59 | 4.78 | 49.4 | 53.6 |
| 1990 | 643.775 million | 864.972 million | 17.5 | 20.7 | 5.91 | 4.04 | 51.7 | 58.6 |
| 2000 | 830.583 million | 1.05792 billion | 18.1 | 22.2 | 5.20 | 3.35 | 53.7 | 62.8 |
| 2010 | 1.07222 billion | 1.24348 billion | 18.9 | 24.6 | 4.89 | 2.60 | 58.8 | 67.2 |
| 2023 | 1.48077 billion | 1.43807 billion | 20.0 | 29.1 | 4.07 | 1.98 | 63.8 | 72.0 |
| 2030* | 1.72721 billion | 1.52514 billion | 21.2 | 31.8 | 3.65 | 1.88 | 65.1 | 73.6 |
| 2040* | 2.09565 billion | 1.62258 billion | 23.3 | 35.7 | 3.15 | 1.80 | 66.8 | 75.7 |
| 2050* | 2.46665 billion | 1.67959 billion | 25.4 | 39.3 | 2.79 | 1.76 | 68.4 | 77.5 |
| 2060* | 2.82150 billion | 1.70095 billion | 27.6 | 42.3 | 2.54 | 1.73 | 69.8 | 79.3 |
| 2070* | 3.14522 billion | 1.68920 billion | 29.9 | 44.6 | 2.35 | 1.72 | 71.2 | 81.0 |
| 2080* | 3.42470 billion | 1.64555 billion | 32.1 | 46.5 | 2.21 | 1.71 | 72.4 | 82.5 |
| 2090* | 3.64905 billion | 1.58031 billion | 34.2 | 47.9 | 2.10 | 1.70 | 73.7 | 84.0 |
| 2100* | 3.81388 billion | 1.50525 billion | 36.1 | 48.8 | 2.02 | 1.69 | 74.9 | 85.3 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AGG − IND · 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 India, 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 India 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
Both sides of this comparison come from the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects 2024 — the same release, the same tables, counted to 2023 and projected beyond it on the medium variant. That shared origin is what a comparison rests on.
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