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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Brazil and 
China, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Brazil are older than 36. In China, half are older than 42.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Brazil 211,140,729 people · China 1,422,584,932
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
BRA × CHN · 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
- 19
- Aged 15 to 64
- 69
- Aged 65 and over
- 12
- Children, under 15
- 15
- Aged 15 to 64
- 70
- Aged 65 and over
- 15
BRA × CHN · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Brazil would have about 1.6 children and a woman in China about 1.0. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 76 years in Brazil, about 79 in China.
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.
BRA × CHN · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 1.41 billion people in China and 214 million in Brazil: about 7 times as many people as Brazil.
Brazil's population is 4.0 times what it was in 1950; China's population is 2.6 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Brazil's population is expected to peak in 2042, and China's population peaked in 2021. In 2100: 163 million in Brazil, 633 million in China (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Brazil: people | China: people | Brazil: half older than | China: half older than | Brazil: children per woman | China: children per woman | Brazil: life expectancy | China: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 53.4085 million | 544.044 million | 18.5 | 23.3 | 6.12 | 5.81 | 48.5 | 43.8 |
| 1960 | 72.3881 million | 654.802 million | 17.9 | 20.9 | 6.05 | 4.45 | 53.2 | 33.4 |
| 1970 | 95.3756 million | 823.309 million | 18.3 | 19.0 | 4.93 | 6.08 | 57.3 | 56.8 |
| 1980 | 121.207 million | 983.164 million | 20.2 | 21.9 | 4.04 | 2.74 | 61.8 | 64.2 |
| 1990 | 149.143 million | 1.15358 billion | 22.4 | 24.7 | 2.90 | 2.51 | 65.9 | 68.2 |
| 2000 | 174.018 million | 1.26958 billion | 25.2 | 30.0 | 2.25 | 1.63 | 69.6 | 72.3 |
| 2010 | 193.702 million | 1.35156 billion | 29.2 | 35.1 | 1.79 | 1.69 | 73.8 | 75.7 |
| 2023 | 211.141 million | 1.42258 billion | 34.9 | 40.1 | 1.62 | 1.00 | 75.8 | 78.0 |
| 2030* | 216.074 million | 1.39815 billion | 37.9 | 43.9 | 1.58 | 1.06 | 77.1 | 79.8 |
| 2040* | 219.237 million | 1.34282 billion | 41.8 | 49.6 | 1.57 | 1.13 | 78.7 | 81.7 |
| 2050* | 217.489 million | 1.26029 billion | 44.9 | 53.1 | 1.56 | 1.18 | 80.3 | 83.4 |
| 2060* | 211.039 million | 1.13513 billion | 47.3 | 55.7 | 1.56 | 1.23 | 81.8 | 84.9 |
| 2070* | 200.893 million | 998.784 million | 49.3 | 58.7 | 1.57 | 1.27 | 83.2 | 86.3 |
| 2080* | 188.599 million | 870.252 million | 50.3 | 62.4 | 1.57 | 1.29 | 84.5 | 87.5 |
| 2090* | 175.781 million | 744.903 million | 51.0 | 62.4 | 1.58 | 1.32 | 85.7 | 88.7 |
| 2100* | 163.364 million | 633.368 million | 51.7 | 61.7 | 1.58 | 1.34 | 86.8 | 89.8 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
BRA − CHN · 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 Brazil and which is China, 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; Brazil is drawn in solid blue squares and China 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
Brazil and China 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.
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