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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Burkina Faso and 
North Korea, side by side
Line both places up by age in 2026. In Burkina Faso, half are older than 19; in North Korea, half are older than 38.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Burkina Faso 23,025,776 people · North Korea 26,418,204
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
BFA × PRK · 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
- 40
- Aged 15 to 64
- 57
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
- Children, under 15
- 19
- Aged 15 to 64
- 68
- Aged 65 and over
- 13
BFA × PRK · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Burkina Faso is at about 3.9 children for each woman, at this year's rates; North Korea is at about 1.8. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 62 years of life in Burkina Faso and about 74 in North Korea.
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.
BFA × PRK · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
North Korea is the larger of the two, with about as many people as Burkina Faso: 26.6 million to 24.6 million.
Burkina Faso's population is 5.8 times what it was in 1950; North Korea's population is 2.4 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Burkina Faso's population is still growing in 2100, and North Korea's population is expected to peak in 2032. The UN expects Burkina Faso to have more people than North Korea from 2031. In 2100: 49.9 million in Burkina Faso, 19.5 million in North Korea (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Burkina Faso: people | North Korea: people | Burkina Faso: half older than | North Korea: half older than | Burkina Faso: children per woman | North Korea: children per woman | Burkina Faso: life expectancy | North Korea: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 4.21315 million | 11.1167 million | 19.6 | 17.3 | 5.82 | 4.99 | 33.0 | 14.2 |
| 1960 | 4.77862 million | 11.7230 million | 19.8 | 19.9 | 6.25 | 3.57 | 36.1 | 55.8 |
| 1970 | 5.61030 million | 15.1728 million | 18.9 | 21.4 | 6.68 | 3.85 | 39.5 | 62.0 |
| 1980 | 6.94790 million | 18.2368 million | 17.5 | 22.4 | 7.22 | 2.84 | 46.5 | 67.2 |
| 1990 | 9.15936 million | 21.1121 million | 16.4 | 25.9 | 7.01 | 2.39 | 49.3 | 70.5 |
| 2000 | 11.9255 million | 23.6659 million | 16.4 | 30.1 | 6.52 | 1.94 | 50.8 | 60.9 |
| 2010 | 16.1765 million | 24.9873 million | 17.0 | 34.0 | 5.94 | 1.89 | 56.3 | 70.3 |
| 2023 | 23.0258 million | 26.4182 million | 18.3 | 37.0 | 4.19 | 1.78 | 61.1 | 73.6 |
| 2030* | 26.7303 million | 26.7849 million | 20.1 | 39.0 | 3.57 | 1.72 | 62.4 | 74.5 |
| 2040* | 32.1936 million | 26.5424 million | 23.2 | 42.1 | 2.96 | 1.69 | 64.0 | 75.7 |
| 2050* | 37.3044 million | 25.7871 million | 25.8 | 43.9 | 2.61 | 1.67 | 65.5 | 77.0 |
| 2060* | 41.7033 million | 24.6827 million | 28.4 | 44.7 | 2.39 | 1.66 | 66.8 | 78.4 |
| 2070* | 45.3171 million | 23.3978 million | 31.1 | 46.6 | 2.22 | 1.66 | 68.0 | 79.8 |
| 2080* | 47.9097 million | 22.1247 million | 33.4 | 48.0 | 2.10 | 1.65 | 69.3 | 81.2 |
| 2090* | 49.3386 million | 20.8217 million | 35.3 | 48.4 | 2.02 | 1.65 | 70.4 | 82.5 |
| 2100* | 49.8542 million | 19.5121 million | 36.9 | 49.6 | 1.95 | 1.64 | 71.6 | 83.8 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
BFA − PRK · 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 Burkina Faso and which is North Korea, 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; Burkina Faso is drawn in solid blue squares and North Korea 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: Burkina Faso · North Korea. 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.
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