Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Australia and 
Syria, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Australia are older than 40. In Syria, half are older than 25.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Australia 26,451,124 people · Syria 23,594,623
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 × SYR · 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
- 28
- Aged 15 to 64
- 67
- Aged 65 and over
- 5
AUS × SYR · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Australia is at about 1.6 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Syria is at about 2.6. 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 73 in Syria.
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 × SYR · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Australia has about as many people as Syria: 27.2 million against 26.5 million.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Australia's population is 3.3 times what it was in 1950, while Syria's population is 7.3 times what it was in 1950.
Australia's population is still growing in 2100; Syria's population is expected to peak in 2086. The UN expects Syria to have more people than Australia from 2028. In 2100: 43.1 million in Australia, 43.7 million in Syria (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Australia: people | Syria: people | Australia: half older than | Syria: half older than | Australia: children per woman | Syria: children per woman | Australia: life expectancy | Syria: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 8.17675 million | 3.61208 million | 30.4 | 20.2 | 3.06 | 7.62 | 69.0 | 42.5 |
| 1960 | 10.2808 million | 4.67350 million | 29.6 | 17.5 | 3.45 | 7.50 | 70.9 | 52.7 |
| 1970 | 12.5994 million | 6.38061 million | 27.6 | 15.8 | 2.86 | 7.62 | 70.7 | 60.6 |
| 1980 | 14.7213 million | 8.95766 million | 29.4 | 15.5 | 1.90 | 7.12 | 74.6 | 66.5 |
| 1990 | 17.1263 million | 12.5792 million | 32.1 | 16.4 | 1.91 | 5.56 | 77.0 | 69.8 |
| 2000 | 19.1325 million | 16.6379 million | 35.4 | 18.5 | 1.76 | 4.07 | 79.6 | 70.9 |
| 2010 | 22.1416 million | 22.4824 million | 37.0 | 21.7 | 1.95 | 3.35 | 82.0 | 73.5 |
| 2023 | 26.4511 million | 23.5946 million | 38.8 | 23.3 | 1.64 | 2.71 | 83.9 | 72.1 |
| 2030* | 28.1885 million | 29.3955 million | 40.5 | 26.5 | 1.64 | 2.48 | 84.9 | 74.0 |
| 2040* | 30.3575 million | 34.5332 million | 42.5 | 30.3 | 1.64 | 2.23 | 86.1 | 75.6 |
| 2050* | 32.5070 million | 37.7934 million | 43.0 | 33.1 | 1.64 | 2.06 | 87.3 | 77.0 |
| 2060* | 34.5627 million | 40.8240 million | 43.9 | 35.0 | 1.63 | 1.95 | 88.3 | 78.5 |
| 2070* | 36.6351 million | 42.9823 million | 44.6 | 38.6 | 1.63 | 1.87 | 89.4 | 79.9 |
| 2080* | 38.7008 million | 43.8899 million | 44.9 | 41.8 | 1.64 | 1.82 | 90.5 | 81.3 |
| 2090* | 40.8767 million | 44.1231 million | 45.1 | 43.0 | 1.64 | 1.78 | 91.6 | 82.7 |
| 2100* | 43.1437 million | 43.6867 million | 45.8 | 44.3 | 1.63 | 1.76 | 92.6 | 84.0 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AUS − SYR · 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 Syria, 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 Syria 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
Every figure for Australia and Syria is the United Nations Population Division's, from World Population Prospects 2024: counted to 2023, and the medium projection for each year after that. Both places are taken from the same release and the same tables, which is what makes them comparable at all.
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