Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

France and United Kingdom, side by side

Line both places up by age in 2026. In France, half are older than 43; in the United Kingdom, half are older than 41.

UN estimates for mid-2023: France 66,438,822 people · United Kingdom 68,682,962

France 66.7 million people Half are older than 43 23 in 100 are 65 or older

United Kingdom 69.9 million people Half are older than 41 20 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

FRA × GBR · 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.

France

Children, under 15: 16
Aged 15 to 64: 61
Aged 65 and over: 23

United Kingdom

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 63
Aged 65 and over: 20

FRA × GBR · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

At today's rates, a woman in France would have about 1.6 children in her lifetime. In the United Kingdom, about 1.5. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 84 years in France, about 82 in the United Kingdom.

Children per woman, 2026

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

France 1.6

United Kingdom 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.

France 84 years

United Kingdom 82 years

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

FRA × GBR · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

The United Kingdom has about as many people as France: 69.9 million against 66.7 million.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: France's population is 1.6 times what it was in 1950, while the United Kingdom's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950.

France's population is expected to peak in 2095. Meanwhile the United Kingdom's population is expected to peak in 2072. In 2100: 68.5 million in France, 74.3 million in the United Kingdom (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	France: people	United Kingdom: people	France: half older than	United Kingdom: half older than	France: children per woman	United Kingdom: children per woman	France: life expectancy	United Kingdom: life expectancy
1950	41.8831 million	50.1210 million	34.4	34.9	2.96	2.22	66.4	68.6
1960	46.4281 million	52.5386 million	32.8	35.5	2.73	2.70	70.4	71.0
1970	50.8131 million	55.6638 million	32.4	34.2	2.48	2.42	72.1	71.9
1980	53.9411 million	56.2821 million	32.3	34.3	1.95	1.89	74.2	73.6
1990	56.9902 million	57.3679 million	34.7	35.9	1.78	1.83	76.8	75.7
2000	59.4837 million	59.0573 million	37.7	37.6	1.88	1.64	79.0	77.8
2010	63.4174 million	63.0065 million	40.0	39.2	2.02	1.92	81.4	80.4
2023	66.4388 million	68.6830 million	42.8	40.8	1.64	1.56	83.3	81.3
2030*	67.1077 million	71.2870 million	44.0	41.7	1.64	1.52	84.2	82.4
2040*	67.9389 million	73.7746 million	44.3	43.1	1.64	1.53	85.4	83.8
2050*	68.2197 million	75.5047 million	44.5	43.9	1.65	1.55	86.6	85.1
2060*	67.8503 million	76.0104 million	45.8	45.7	1.65	1.56	87.7	86.3
2070*	67.6789 million	76.0491 million	46.3	46.9	1.65	1.57	88.9	87.4
2080*	68.0249 million	75.9562 million	46.2	47.4	1.65	1.58	90.0	88.5
2090*	68.4219 million	75.3783 million	47.3	48.0	1.65	1.59	91.0	89.5
2100*	68.4846 million	74.3054 million	48.1	48.9	1.65	1.59	92.1	90.6

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

FRA − GBR · 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 France and which is the United Kingdom, 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; France is drawn in solid blue squares and the United Kingdom 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: France · United Kingdom. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for France and United Kingdom 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.

For how the median age is derived, why “100 people” can read a person high or low, and what the all-country pictures do and do not count, see 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