Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Ethiopia and Russia, side by side

Ethiopia in 2026: half the people are older than 20. Russia: half are older than 42.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Ethiopia 128,691,692 people · Russia 145,440,501

Ethiopia 139 million people Half are older than 20 3 in 100 are 65 or older

Russia 143 million people Half are older than 42 18 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

ETH × 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.

Ethiopia

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

Russia

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 65
Aged 65 and over: 18

ETH × RUS · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

At today's rates, a woman in Ethiopia would have about 3.7 children in her lifetime. In Russia, about 1.5. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 68 years of life in Ethiopia and about 74 in Russia.

Children per woman, 2026

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

Ethiopia 3.7

Russia 1.5

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.

Ethiopia 68 years

Russia 74 years

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

ETH × RUS · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

Russia has about as many people as Ethiopia: 143 million against 139 million.

Set each against its own 1950 self and Ethiopia's population is 7.9 times what it was in 1950, Russia's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950.

Ethiopia's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile Russia's population peaked in 1991. The UN expects Ethiopia to have more people than Russia from 2028. In 2100: 367 million in Ethiopia, 126 million in Russia (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Ethiopia: people	Russia: people	Ethiopia: half older than	Russia: half older than	Ethiopia: children per woman	Russia: children per woman	Ethiopia: life expectancy	Russia: life expectancy
1950	17.6704 million	103.392 million	18.0	24.0	6.43	2.93	35.5	55.5
1960	21.3767 million	119.934 million	18.5	27.3	6.51	2.63	39.6	68.3
1970	27.8291 million	130.367 million	18.0	30.7	6.78	2.01	42.1	68.7
1980	34.4285 million	138.573 million	16.7	31.1	7.29	1.92	42.8	67.5
1990	47.6097 million	148.980 million	16.8	33.2	7.20	1.91	45.1	69.3
2000	67.4115 million	146.718 million	16.1	36.7	6.65	1.19	50.9	65.0
2010	90.5385 million	143.934 million	16.8	38.0	5.28	1.58	59.7	68.2
2023	128.692 million	145.440 million	19.7	40.5	3.99	1.45	67.3	73.2
2030*	152.855 million	141.889 million	21.2	43.2	3.43	1.49	69.2	74.4
2040*	188.451 million	138.282 million	23.1	44.9	2.90	1.52	71.4	76.2
2050*	225.022 million	136.133 million	25.6	42.7	2.55	1.54	73.3	77.9
2060*	260.708 million	132.893 million	28.2	44.4	2.32	1.55	75.1	79.5
2070*	293.791 million	129.711 million	30.6	44.9	2.15	1.57	76.9	81.1
2080*	323.239 million	127.838 million	33.1	43.9	2.03	1.58	78.5	82.4
2090*	347.651 million	127.144 million	35.4	44.8	1.94	1.59	80.1	83.8
2100*	367.290 million	126.387 million	37.6	46.0	1.88	1.59	81.6	85.0

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

ETH − 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 Ethiopia 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; Ethiopia 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: Ethiopia · Russia. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for Ethiopia and Russia is the United Nations Population Division's, from World Population Prospects 2024: counted to 2023, and the medium projection for each year after that. Both places are taken from the same release and the same tables, which is what makes them comparable at all.

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.

This is one of 250 pairs with a page. The boxes at the top will take any other two places you want to see side by side.

Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries