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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Bangladesh and 
Democratic Republic of the Congo, side by side
Bangladesh in 2026: half the people are older than 27. The Democratic Republic of the Congo: half are older than 17.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Bangladesh 171,466,990 people · Democratic Republic of the Congo 105,789,732
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
BGD × COD · 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
- 27
- Aged 15 to 64
- 66
- Aged 65 and over
- 7
- Children, under 15
- 46
- Aged 15 to 64
- 51
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
BGD × COD · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Bangladesh would have about 2.1 children and a woman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo about 5.8. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 75 years of life in Bangladesh and about 62 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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.
BGD × COD · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Bangladesh is the larger of the two, with about 50% more people than the Democratic Republic of the Congo: 178 million to 116 million.
Bangladesh's population is 4.3 times what it was in 1950; the Democratic Republic of the Congo's population is 9.5 times what it was in 1950.
Bangladesh's population is expected to peak in 2071. Meanwhile the Democratic Republic of the Congo's population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects the Democratic Republic of the Congo to have more people than Bangladesh from 2050. In 2100: 209 million in Bangladesh, 431 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Bangladesh: people | Democratic Republic of the Congo: people | Bangladesh: half older than | Democratic Republic of the Congo: half older than | Bangladesh: children per woman | Democratic Republic of the Congo: children per woman | Bangladesh: life expectancy | Democratic Republic of the Congo: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 41.2069 million | 12.2943 million | 19.3 | 18.1 | 6.37 | 5.97 | 37.4 | 38.2 |
| 1960 | 51.8287 million | 15.2648 million | 18.9 | 18.3 | 6.74 | 6.11 | 44.0 | 40.8 |
| 1970 | 69.0589 million | 20.1374 million | 17.8 | 18.3 | 6.84 | 6.33 | 42.7 | 43.3 |
| 1980 | 88.0164 million | 26.7111 million | 17.5 | 17.8 | 6.33 | 6.50 | 52.3 | 45.5 |
| 1990 | 111.634 million | 36.6841 million | 18.4 | 17.7 | 4.51 | 6.65 | 55.8 | 48.5 |
| 2000 | 134.544 million | 50.5074 million | 20.7 | 17.1 | 3.28 | 6.70 | 62.0 | 51.9 |
| 2010 | 152.202 million | 68.5630 million | 22.9 | 16.8 | 2.38 | 6.59 | 68.0 | 56.4 |
| 2023 | 171.467 million | 105.790 million | 26.3 | 16.8 | 2.16 | 6.05 | 74.7 | 61.9 |
| 2030* | 186.072 million | 131.532 million | 28.7 | 17.2 | 2.01 | 5.42 | 76.5 | 63.0 |
| 2040* | 202.589 million | 172.596 million | 32.7 | 18.8 | 1.88 | 4.38 | 78.8 | 64.5 |
| 2050* | 214.709 million | 218.246 million | 36.5 | 21.0 | 1.81 | 3.66 | 80.9 | 66.0 |
| 2060* | 223.149 million | 266.679 million | 39.8 | 23.3 | 1.78 | 3.14 | 82.8 | 67.2 |
| 2070* | 226.126 million | 314.382 million | 43.4 | 25.6 | 1.75 | 2.77 | 84.4 | 68.4 |
| 2080* | 224.081 million | 358.921 million | 46.4 | 28.1 | 1.74 | 2.50 | 85.9 | 69.6 |
| 2090* | 218.048 million | 398.481 million | 48.3 | 30.6 | 1.73 | 2.30 | 87.2 | 70.7 |
| 2100* | 208.597 million | 430.709 million | 49.7 | 32.8 | 1.72 | 2.16 | 88.3 | 71.9 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
BGD − COD · 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 Bangladesh and which is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 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; Bangladesh is drawn in solid blue squares and the Democratic Republic of the Congo 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: Bangladesh · Democratic Republic of the Congo. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Other comparisons
- Bangladesh and Brazil
- Bangladesh and Ethiopia
- Bangladesh and India
- Bangladesh and Myanmar
- Bangladesh and Pakistan
- Brazil and Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Egypt
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Japan
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mexico
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Philippines
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia
- Bangladesh and Southern Asia
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Middle Africa
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.
250 comparisons have a page of their own; any other two places can be compared from the boxes at the top.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries