Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Cameroon and Poland, side by side

Line both places up by age in 2026. In Cameroon, half are older than 19; in Poland, half are older than 44.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Cameroon 28,372,687 people · Poland 38,762,844

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

Poland 37.8 million people Half are older than 44 21 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 × POL · 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

Poland

Children, under 15: 14
Aged 15 to 64: 65
Aged 65 and over: 21

CMR × POL · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

Cameroon is at about 4.1 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Poland is at about 1.3. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 65 years of life in Cameroon and about 79 in Poland.

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

Poland 1.3

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

Poland 79 years

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

CMR × POL · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

There are 37.8 million people in Poland and 30.6 million in Cameroon: about 20% more people than Cameroon.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Cameroon's population is 7.1 times what it was in 1950, while Poland's population is 1.5 times what it was in 1950.

Looking ahead: Cameroon's population is still growing in 2100, and Poland's population peaked in 2023. The UN expects Cameroon to have more people than Poland from 2034. In 2100: 88.9 million in Cameroon, 19.3 million in Poland (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Cameroon: people	Poland: people	Cameroon: half older than	Poland: half older than	Cameroon: children per woman	Poland: children per woman	Cameroon: life expectancy	Poland: life expectancy
1950	4.33008 million	24.7802 million	20.3	25.8	5.73	3.65	33.1	58.3
1960	5.15906 million	29.5760 million	20.5	26.6	5.72	3.00	34.7	67.1
1970	6.44979 million	32.5426 million	19.1	28.3	6.20	2.25	48.0	69.6
1980	8.51222 million	35.5765 million	17.7	29.5	6.61	2.28	50.9	70.5
1990	11.3318 million	38.0555 million	16.7	32.4	6.36	2.06	54.4	70.6
2000	14.9126 million	38.2581 million	17.2	35.3	5.51	1.37	53.3	73.7
2010	19.6681 million	38.0954 million	17.8	37.9	5.15	1.41	57.0	76.3
2023	28.3727 million	38.7628 million	18.8	42.3	4.32	1.30	63.7	78.6
2030*	33.7772 million	37.1985 million	19.9	46.0	3.88	1.33	65.5	79.8
2040*	42.2080 million	35.1795 million	21.9	50.3	3.35	1.37	67.7	81.5
2050*	51.0963 million	32.8141 million	24.1	52.8	2.96	1.40	69.5	83.0
2060*	59.9609 million	30.1392 million	26.2	53.5	2.68	1.42	71.1	84.4
2070*	68.4582 million	27.1036 million	28.5	55.4	2.48	1.45	72.7	85.6
2080*	76.3444 million	24.0377 million	30.7	56.2	2.32	1.46	74.2	86.8
2090*	83.2033 million	21.4526 million	32.9	55.5	2.19	1.47	75.7	87.9
2100*	88.8757 million	19.3298 million	35.0	56.3	2.10	1.49	77.1	89.0

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

CMR − POL · 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 Poland, 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 Poland in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.

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Keep exploring

Each place on its own: Cameroon · Poland. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Cameroon and Poland 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.

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.

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