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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Europe and 
Sub-Saharan Africa, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Europe are older than 44. In Sub-Saharan Africa, half are older than 20.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Europe 745,602,874 people · Sub-Saharan Africa 1,212,229,420
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
- 40
- Aged 15 to 64
- 57
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
AGG × AGG · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Europe would have about 1.4 children and a woman in Sub-Saharan Africa about 4.1. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 80 years of life in Europe and about 63 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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
Sub-Saharan Africa has about 80% more people than Europe: 1.30 billion against 743 million.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Europe's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950, while Sub-Saharan Africa's population is 7.3 times what it was in 1950.
Europe's population peaked in 2020. Meanwhile Sub-Saharan Africa's population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 592 million in Europe, 3.35 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Europe: people | Sub-Saharan Africa: people | Europe: half older than | Sub-Saharan Africa: half older than | Europe: children per woman | Sub-Saharan Africa: children per woman | Europe: life expectancy | Sub-Saharan Africa: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 548.867 million | 177.731 million | 28.6 | 19.0 | 2.70 | 6.42 | 62.0 | 37.2 |
| 1960 | 605.817 million | 219.821 million | 30.3 | 18.5 | 2.59 | 6.57 | 68.7 | 40.7 |
| 1970 | 656.999 million | 283.033 million | 31.8 | 17.8 | 2.28 | 6.72 | 70.3 | 43.9 |
| 1980 | 694.279 million | 373.827 million | 32.5 | 17.2 | 1.93 | 6.77 | 71.3 | 47.8 |
| 1990 | 724.139 million | 500.656 million | 34.6 | 17.1 | 1.72 | 6.30 | 73.1 | 49.1 |
| 2000 | 728.164 million | 655.013 million | 37.6 | 17.4 | 1.41 | 5.74 | 73.4 | 51.0 |
| 2010 | 738.145 million | 861.277 million | 40.3 | 17.8 | 1.61 | 5.32 | 76.2 | 56.5 |
| 2023 | 745.603 million | 1.21223 billion | 43.2 | 19.1 | 1.40 | 4.32 | 79.1 | 62.1 |
| 2030* | 738.433 million | 1.43023 billion | 45.2 | 20.3 | 1.44 | 3.84 | 80.3 | 63.5 |
| 2040* | 722.102 million | 1.75934 billion | 47.4 | 22.2 | 1.48 | 3.27 | 81.8 | 65.2 |
| 2050* | 703.028 million | 2.09362 billion | 47.2 | 24.4 | 1.50 | 2.87 | 83.3 | 66.8 |
| 2060* | 676.160 million | 2.41831 billion | 48.1 | 26.7 | 1.53 | 2.59 | 84.6 | 68.4 |
| 2070* | 648.640 million | 2.71842 billion | 49.0 | 29.0 | 1.54 | 2.39 | 85.9 | 69.8 |
| 2080* | 626.433 million | 2.97981 billion | 48.6 | 31.3 | 1.55 | 2.23 | 87.2 | 71.2 |
| 2090* | 608.693 million | 3.19200 billion | 48.8 | 33.4 | 1.57 | 2.12 | 88.3 | 72.5 |
| 2100* | 592.251 million | 3.35146 billion | 49.6 | 35.3 | 1.58 | 2.03 | 89.5 | 73.8 |
* 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 Sub-Saharan Africa, 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 Sub-Saharan Africa 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 · Sub-Saharan Africa. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Other comparisons
Apparatus
Sources and method
Every figure for Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa 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.
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