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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
China and 
Russia, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in China are older than 42. In Russia, half are older than 42.
UN estimates for mid-2023: China 1,422,584,932 people · Russia 145,440,501
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
CHN × RUS · 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
- 15
- Aged 15 to 64
- 70
- Aged 65 and over
- 15
- Children, under 15
- 17
- Aged 15 to 64
- 65
- Aged 65 and over
- 18
CHN × RUS · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
China is at about 1.0 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Russia is at about 1.5. A baby born in China this year can expect to live about 79 years. In Russia, about 74.
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.
CHN × RUS · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 1.41 billion people in China and 143 million in Russia: about 10 times as many people as Russia.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: China's population is 2.6 times what it was in 1950, while Russia's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950.
China's population peaked in 2021; Russia's population peaked in 1991. In 2100: 633 million in China, 126 million in Russia (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | China: people | Russia: people | China: half older than | Russia: half older than | China: children per woman | Russia: children per woman | China: life expectancy | Russia: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 544.044 million | 103.392 million | 23.3 | 24.0 | 5.81 | 2.93 | 43.8 | 55.5 |
| 1960 | 654.802 million | 119.934 million | 20.9 | 27.3 | 4.45 | 2.63 | 33.4 | 68.3 |
| 1970 | 823.309 million | 130.367 million | 19.0 | 30.7 | 6.08 | 2.01 | 56.8 | 68.7 |
| 1980 | 983.164 million | 138.573 million | 21.9 | 31.1 | 2.74 | 1.92 | 64.2 | 67.5 |
| 1990 | 1.15358 billion | 148.980 million | 24.7 | 33.2 | 2.51 | 1.91 | 68.2 | 69.3 |
| 2000 | 1.26958 billion | 146.718 million | 30.0 | 36.7 | 1.63 | 1.19 | 72.3 | 65.0 |
| 2010 | 1.35156 billion | 143.934 million | 35.1 | 38.0 | 1.69 | 1.58 | 75.7 | 68.2 |
| 2023 | 1.42258 billion | 145.440 million | 40.1 | 40.5 | 1.00 | 1.45 | 78.0 | 73.2 |
| 2030* | 1.39815 billion | 141.889 million | 43.9 | 43.2 | 1.06 | 1.49 | 79.8 | 74.4 |
| 2040* | 1.34282 billion | 138.282 million | 49.6 | 44.9 | 1.13 | 1.52 | 81.7 | 76.2 |
| 2050* | 1.26029 billion | 136.133 million | 53.1 | 42.7 | 1.18 | 1.54 | 83.4 | 77.9 |
| 2060* | 1.13513 billion | 132.893 million | 55.7 | 44.4 | 1.23 | 1.55 | 84.9 | 79.5 |
| 2070* | 998.784 million | 129.711 million | 58.7 | 44.9 | 1.27 | 1.57 | 86.3 | 81.1 |
| 2080* | 870.252 million | 127.838 million | 62.4 | 43.9 | 1.29 | 1.58 | 87.5 | 82.4 |
| 2090* | 744.903 million | 127.144 million | 62.4 | 44.8 | 1.32 | 1.59 | 88.7 | 83.8 |
| 2100* | 633.368 million | 126.387 million | 61.7 | 46.0 | 1.34 | 1.59 | 89.8 | 85.0 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
CHN − RUS · 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 China and which is Russia, 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; China is drawn in solid blue squares and Russia 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: China · Russia. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
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Apparatus
Sources and method
China and Russia 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