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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Australia and 
Burkina Faso, side by side
Line both places up by age in 2026. In Australia, half are older than 40; in Burkina Faso, half are older than 19.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Australia 26,451,124 people · Burkina Faso 23,025,776
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
AUS × BFA · 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
- 18
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 18
- Children, under 15
- 40
- Aged 15 to 64
- 57
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
AUS × BFA · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
At today's rates, a woman in Australia would have about 1.6 children in her lifetime. In Burkina Faso, about 3.9. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 84 years in Australia, about 62 in Burkina Faso.
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.
AUS × BFA · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Australia is the larger of the two, with about 10% more people than Burkina Faso: 27.2 million to 24.6 million.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Australia's population is 3.3 times what it was in 1950, while Burkina Faso's population is 5.8 times what it was in 1950.
Australia's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile Burkina Faso's population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects Burkina Faso to have more people than Australia from 2035. In 2100: 43.1 million in Australia, 49.9 million in Burkina Faso (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Australia: people | Burkina Faso: people | Australia: half older than | Burkina Faso: half older than | Australia: children per woman | Burkina Faso: children per woman | Australia: life expectancy | Burkina Faso: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 8.17675 million | 4.21315 million | 30.4 | 19.6 | 3.06 | 5.82 | 69.0 | 33.0 |
| 1960 | 10.2808 million | 4.77862 million | 29.6 | 19.8 | 3.45 | 6.25 | 70.9 | 36.1 |
| 1970 | 12.5994 million | 5.61030 million | 27.6 | 18.9 | 2.86 | 6.68 | 70.7 | 39.5 |
| 1980 | 14.7213 million | 6.94790 million | 29.4 | 17.5 | 1.90 | 7.22 | 74.6 | 46.5 |
| 1990 | 17.1263 million | 9.15936 million | 32.1 | 16.4 | 1.91 | 7.01 | 77.0 | 49.3 |
| 2000 | 19.1325 million | 11.9255 million | 35.4 | 16.4 | 1.76 | 6.52 | 79.6 | 50.8 |
| 2010 | 22.1416 million | 16.1765 million | 37.0 | 17.0 | 1.95 | 5.94 | 82.0 | 56.3 |
| 2023 | 26.4511 million | 23.0258 million | 38.8 | 18.3 | 1.64 | 4.19 | 83.9 | 61.1 |
| 2030* | 28.1885 million | 26.7303 million | 40.5 | 20.1 | 1.64 | 3.57 | 84.9 | 62.4 |
| 2040* | 30.3575 million | 32.1936 million | 42.5 | 23.2 | 1.64 | 2.96 | 86.1 | 64.0 |
| 2050* | 32.5070 million | 37.3044 million | 43.0 | 25.8 | 1.64 | 2.61 | 87.3 | 65.5 |
| 2060* | 34.5627 million | 41.7033 million | 43.9 | 28.4 | 1.63 | 2.39 | 88.3 | 66.8 |
| 2070* | 36.6351 million | 45.3171 million | 44.6 | 31.1 | 1.63 | 2.22 | 89.4 | 68.0 |
| 2080* | 38.7008 million | 47.9097 million | 44.9 | 33.4 | 1.64 | 2.10 | 90.5 | 69.3 |
| 2090* | 40.8767 million | 49.3386 million | 45.1 | 35.3 | 1.64 | 2.02 | 91.6 | 70.4 |
| 2100* | 43.1437 million | 49.8542 million | 45.8 | 36.9 | 1.63 | 1.95 | 92.6 | 71.6 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AUS − BFA · 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 Australia and which is Burkina Faso, 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; Australia is drawn in solid blue squares and Burkina Faso 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: Australia · Burkina Faso. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
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.
For how the median age is derived, why “100 people” can read a person high or low, and what the all-country pictures do and do not count, see 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