Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

China and United States, side by side

China in 2026: half the people are older than 42. The United States: half are older than 40.

UN estimates for mid-2023: China 1,422,584,932 people · United States 343,477,335

China 1.41 billion people Half are older than 42 15 in 100 are 65 or older

United States 349 million people Half are older than 40 19 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

CHN × USA · 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.

China

Children, under 15: 15
Aged 15 to 64: 70
Aged 65 and over: 15

United States

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 64
Aged 65 and over: 19

CHN × USA · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in China would have about 1.0 children and a woman in the United States about 1.6. Babies born this year can expect about 79 years of life in China and about 80 in the United States.

Children per woman, 2026

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

China 1.0

United States 1.6

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.

China 79 years

United States 80 years

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

CHN × USA · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

China is the larger of the two, with about 4 times as many people as the United States: 1.41 billion to 349 million.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: China's population is 2.6 times what it was in 1950, while the United States' population is 2.3 times what it was in 1950.

China's population peaked in 2021; the United States' population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 633 million in China, 421 million in the United States (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	China: people	United States: people	China: half older than	United States: half older than	China: children per woman	United States: children per woman	China: life expectancy	United States: life expectancy
1950	544.044 million	154.203 million	23.3	30.0	5.81	3.09	43.8	68.1
1960	654.802 million	180.275 million	20.9	29.3	4.45	3.73	33.4	69.8
1970	823.309 million	207.796 million	19.0	27.7	6.08	2.52	56.8	70.7
1980	983.164 million	229.859 million	21.9	30.1	2.74	1.86	64.2	73.7
1990	1.15358 billion	253.373 million	24.7	32.9	2.51	2.07	68.2	75.4
2000	1.26958 billion	281.484 million	30.0	35.3	1.63	2.03	72.3	76.8
2010	1.35156 billion	311.063 million	35.1	36.9	1.69	1.92	75.7	78.7
2023	1.42258 billion	343.477 million	40.1	39.0	1.00	1.62	78.0	79.3
2030*	1.39815 billion	355.650 million	43.9	40.6	1.06	1.63	79.8	80.4
2040*	1.34282 billion	370.209 million	49.6	41.8	1.13	1.64	81.7	81.8
2050*	1.26029 billion	380.847 million	53.1	42.9	1.18	1.64	83.4	83.2
2060*	1.13513 billion	388.918 million	55.7	44.1	1.23	1.64	84.9	84.6
2070*	998.784 million	398.218 million	58.7	44.7	1.27	1.64	86.3	85.8
2080*	870.252 million	407.080 million	62.4	45.1	1.29	1.65	87.5	87.0
2090*	744.903 million	414.458 million	62.4	45.8	1.32	1.65	88.7	88.1
2100*	633.368 million	421.279 million	61.7	46.3	1.34	1.65	89.8	89.2

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

CHN − USA · 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 the United States, 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 the United States 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 · United States. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

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.

The working behind the median age, the rounding in the “100 people” pictures and the reason the regions are kept out of the all-country views are all set out in 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