Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Cameroon and Madagascar, side by side

In 2026, half of the people in Cameroon are older than 19. In Madagascar, half are older than 20.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Cameroon 28,372,687 people · Madagascar 31,195,932

Cameroon 30.6 million people Half are older than 19 3 in 100 are 65 or older

Madagascar 33.5 million people Half are older than 20 3 in 100 are 65 or older

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.

Compare shapes Compare sizes

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.

Year 2026 · UN projection

estimatesprojections

men women projected

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries

CMR × MDG · 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.

Cameroon

Children, under 15: 41
Aged 15 to 64: 56
Aged 65 and over: 3

Madagascar

Children, under 15: 39
Aged 15 to 64: 58
Aged 65 and over: 3

CMR × MDG · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

At today's rates, a woman in Cameroon would have about 4.1 children in her lifetime. In Madagascar, about 3.8. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 65 years in Cameroon, about 64 in Madagascar.

Children per woman, 2026

Each figure is one child: how many children a woman would have in her lifetime at that year’s rates.

Cameroon 4.1

Madagascar 3.8

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.

Cameroon 65 years

Madagascar 64 years

Hatched marks are UN projections (medium variant), not measurements.

CMR × MDG · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

There are 33.5 million people in Madagascar and 30.6 million in Cameroon: about as many people as Cameroon.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Cameroon's population is 7.1 times what it was in 1950, while Madagascar's population is 8.5 times what it was in 1950.

Looking ahead: Cameroon's population is still growing in 2100, and Madagascar's population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects Cameroon to have more people than Madagascar from 2074. In 2100: 88.9 million in Cameroon, 85.3 million in Madagascar (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Cameroon: people	Madagascar: people	Cameroon: half older than	Madagascar: half older than	Cameroon: children per woman	Madagascar: children per woman	Cameroon: life expectancy	Madagascar: life expectancy
1950	4.33008 million	3.95607 million	20.3	20.7	5.73	7.43	33.1	39.7
1960	5.15906 million	5.11103 million	20.5	17.8	5.72	7.34	34.7	43.4
1970	6.44979 million	6.67200 million	19.1	16.6	6.20	7.10	48.0	47.9
1980	8.51222 million	9.00603 million	17.7	16.4	6.61	6.84	50.9	50.0
1990	11.3318 million	12.0556 million	16.7	16.8	6.36	6.14	54.4	52.1
2000	14.9126 million	16.5163 million	17.2	17.1	5.51	5.67	53.3	58.0
2010	19.6681 million	22.1833 million	17.8	17.7	5.15	4.90	57.0	62.6
2023	28.3727 million	31.1959 million	18.8	19.9	4.32	3.97	63.7	63.6
2030*	33.7772 million	36.6932 million	19.9	21.1	3.88	3.56	65.5	65.0
2040*	42.2080 million	44.8469 million	21.9	23.0	3.35	3.12	67.7	66.8
2050*	51.0963 million	53.1855 million	24.1	25.2	2.96	2.82	69.5	68.3
2060*	59.9609 million	61.3529 million	26.2	27.4	2.68	2.59	71.1	69.6
2070*	68.4582 million	68.9261 million	28.5	29.4	2.48	2.41	72.7	70.9
2080*	76.3444 million	75.5124 million	30.7	31.5	2.32	2.25	74.2	72.2
2090*	83.2033 million	80.9926 million	32.9	33.4	2.19	2.15	75.7	73.5
2100*	88.8757 million	85.3411 million	35.0	35.2	2.10	2.06	77.1	74.8

* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.

CMR − MDG · 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 Cameroon and which is Madagascar, 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; Cameroon is drawn in solid blue squares and Madagascar 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: Cameroon · Madagascar. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Cameroon and Madagascar 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