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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Burkina Faso and 
Taiwan, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Burkina Faso are older than 19. In Taiwan, half are older than 46.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Burkina Faso 23,025,776 people · Taiwan 23,317,145
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 × TWN · 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
- 11
- Aged 15 to 64
- 68
- Aged 65 and over
- 21
BFA × TWN · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Burkina Faso would have about 3.9 children and a woman in Taiwan about 0.9. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 62 years in Burkina Faso, about 81 in Taiwan.
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 × TWN · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 24.6 million people in Burkina Faso and 23.0 million in Taiwan: about as many people as Taiwan.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Burkina Faso's population is 5.8 times what it was in 1950, while Taiwan's population is 3.0 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Burkina Faso's population is still growing in 2100, and Taiwan's population peaked in 2019. In 2100: 49.9 million in Burkina Faso, 10.0 million in Taiwan (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Burkina Faso: people | Taiwan: people | Burkina Faso: half older than | Taiwan: half older than | Burkina Faso: children per woman | Taiwan: children per woman | Burkina Faso: life expectancy | Taiwan: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 4.21315 million | 7.59653 million | 19.6 | 18.7 | 5.82 | 6.48 | 33.0 | 56.6 |
| 1960 | 4.77862 million | 11.0463 million | 19.8 | 17.9 | 6.25 | 5.79 | 36.1 | 62.5 |
| 1970 | 5.61030 million | 14.8157 million | 18.9 | 18.7 | 6.68 | 3.98 | 39.5 | 69.0 |
| 1980 | 6.94790 million | 18.0865 million | 17.5 | 22.6 | 7.22 | 2.53 | 46.5 | 72.0 |
| 1990 | 9.15936 million | 20.5949 million | 16.4 | 27.1 | 7.01 | 1.79 | 49.3 | 73.9 |
| 2000 | 11.9255 million | 22.3329 million | 16.4 | 32.1 | 6.52 | 1.47 | 50.8 | 76.1 |
| 2010 | 16.1765 million | 23.2240 million | 17.0 | 37.5 | 5.94 | 0.92 | 56.3 | 79.0 |
| 2023 | 23.0258 million | 23.3172 million | 18.3 | 44.5 | 4.19 | 0.87 | 61.1 | 80.6 |
| 2030* | 26.7303 million | 22.5900 million | 20.1 | 48.8 | 3.57 | 0.89 | 62.4 | 81.9 |
| 2040* | 32.1936 million | 21.2571 million | 23.2 | 54.0 | 2.96 | 0.99 | 64.0 | 83.5 |
| 2050* | 37.3044 million | 19.4346 million | 25.8 | 57.3 | 2.61 | 1.07 | 65.5 | 84.9 |
| 2060* | 41.7033 million | 17.3026 million | 28.4 | 59.1 | 2.39 | 1.14 | 66.8 | 86.2 |
| 2070* | 45.3171 million | 15.0464 million | 31.1 | 59.5 | 2.22 | 1.20 | 68.0 | 87.5 |
| 2080* | 47.9097 million | 12.9862 million | 33.4 | 60.6 | 2.10 | 1.25 | 69.3 | 88.6 |
| 2090* | 49.3386 million | 11.3379 million | 35.3 | 59.0 | 2.02 | 1.30 | 70.4 | 89.8 |
| 2100* | 49.8542 million | 10.0170 million | 36.9 | 57.8 | 1.95 | 1.33 | 71.6 | 90.9 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
BFA − TWN · 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 Taiwan, 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 Taiwan 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 · Taiwan. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Apparatus
Sources and method
Burkina Faso and Taiwan 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.
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