Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Europe and 
Northern America, side by side
Europe in 2026: half the people are older than 44. Northern America: half are older than 40.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Europe 745,602,874 people · Northern America 382,902,742
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
AGG × AGG · 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
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 21
- Children, under 15
- 17
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 19
AGG × AGG · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
At today's rates, a woman in Europe would have about 1.4 children in her lifetime. In Northern America, about 1.6. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 80 years in Europe, about 80 in Northern America.
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.
AGG × AGG · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 743 million people in Europe and 390 million in Northern America: about 90% more people than Northern America.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Europe's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950, while Northern America's population is 2.3 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Europe's population peaked in 2020, and Northern America's population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 592 million in Europe, 475 million in Northern America (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Europe: people | Northern America: people | Europe: half older than | Northern America: half older than | Europe: children per woman | Northern America: children per woman | Europe: life expectancy | Northern America: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 548.867 million | 168.009 million | 28.6 | 29.8 | 2.70 | 3.10 | 62.0 | 68.1 |
| 1960 | 605.817 million | 198.253 million | 30.3 | 29.0 | 2.59 | 3.74 | 68.7 | 69.9 |
| 1970 | 656.999 million | 229.340 million | 31.8 | 27.6 | 2.28 | 2.49 | 70.3 | 70.9 |
| 1980 | 694.279 million | 254.502 million | 32.5 | 30.0 | 1.93 | 1.84 | 71.3 | 73.8 |
| 1990 | 724.139 million | 281.282 million | 34.6 | 32.9 | 1.72 | 2.03 | 73.1 | 75.6 |
| 2000 | 728.164 million | 312.500 million | 37.6 | 35.4 | 1.41 | 1.98 | 73.4 | 77.0 |
| 2010 | 738.145 million | 345.386 million | 40.3 | 37.2 | 1.61 | 1.89 | 76.2 | 78.9 |
| 2023 | 745.603 million | 382.903 million | 43.2 | 39.3 | 1.40 | 1.60 | 79.1 | 79.6 |
| 2030* | 738.433 million | 397.430 million | 45.2 | 40.8 | 1.44 | 1.60 | 80.3 | 80.7 |
| 2040* | 722.102 million | 414.279 million | 47.4 | 42.2 | 1.48 | 1.61 | 81.8 | 82.2 |
| 2050* | 703.028 million | 426.580 million | 47.2 | 43.2 | 1.50 | 1.62 | 83.3 | 83.6 |
| 2060* | 676.160 million | 436.166 million | 48.1 | 44.4 | 1.53 | 1.62 | 84.6 | 84.9 |
| 2070* | 648.640 million | 447.170 million | 49.0 | 45.0 | 1.54 | 1.62 | 85.9 | 86.1 |
| 2080* | 626.433 million | 457.616 million | 48.6 | 45.4 | 1.55 | 1.63 | 87.2 | 87.2 |
| 2090* | 608.693 million | 466.495 million | 48.8 | 46.1 | 1.57 | 1.63 | 88.3 | 88.4 |
| 2100* | 592.251 million | 474.966 million | 49.6 | 46.5 | 1.58 | 1.63 | 89.5 | 89.5 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AGG − AGG · 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 Europe and which is Northern America, 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; Europe is drawn in solid blue squares and Northern America 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: Europe · Northern America. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Apparatus
Sources and method
Europe and Northern America 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.
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