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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Ghana and 
Madagascar, side by side
Line both places up by age in 2026. In Ghana, half are older than 23; in Madagascar, half are older than 20.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Ghana 33,787,914 people · Madagascar 31,195,932
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
GHA × MDG · 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
- 35
- Aged 15 to 64
- 61
- Aged 65 and over
- 4
- Children, under 15
- 39
- Aged 15 to 64
- 58
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
GHA × MDG · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Ghana is at about 3.3 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Madagascar is at about 3.8. A baby born in Ghana this year can expect to live about 66 years. In Madagascar, about 64.
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.
GHA × MDG · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 35.7 million people in Ghana and 33.5 million in Madagascar: about as many people as Madagascar.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Ghana's population is 7.0 times what it was in 1950, while Madagascar's population is 8.5 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Ghana's population is still growing in 2100, and Madagascar's population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects Madagascar to have more people than Ghana from 2039. In 2100: 67.5 million in Ghana, 85.3 million in Madagascar (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Ghana: people | Madagascar: people | Ghana: half older than | Madagascar: half older than | Ghana: children per woman | Madagascar: children per woman | Ghana: life expectancy | Madagascar: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 5.08066 million | 3.95607 million | 18.7 | 20.7 | 6.70 | 7.43 | 43.1 | 39.7 |
| 1960 | 6.96121 million | 5.11103 million | 17.7 | 17.8 | 6.89 | 7.34 | 46.9 | 43.4 |
| 1970 | 8.92581 million | 6.67200 million | 15.9 | 16.6 | 6.95 | 7.10 | 47.9 | 47.9 |
| 1980 | 11.9414 million | 9.00603 million | 16.6 | 16.4 | 6.47 | 6.84 | 51.1 | 50.0 |
| 1990 | 15.3947 million | 12.0556 million | 17.1 | 16.8 | 5.74 | 6.14 | 55.4 | 52.1 |
| 2000 | 19.6371 million | 16.5163 million | 18.3 | 17.1 | 4.83 | 5.67 | 58.1 | 58.0 |
| 2010 | 25.4750 million | 22.1833 million | 20.2 | 17.7 | 4.18 | 4.90 | 61.3 | 62.6 |
| 2023 | 33.7879 million | 31.1959 million | 21.9 | 19.9 | 3.40 | 3.97 | 65.5 | 63.6 |
| 2030* | 38.2221 million | 36.6932 million | 23.4 | 21.1 | 3.10 | 3.56 | 66.8 | 65.0 |
| 2040* | 44.5684 million | 44.8469 million | 25.8 | 23.0 | 2.78 | 3.12 | 68.5 | 66.8 |
| 2050* | 50.5530 million | 53.1855 million | 28.0 | 25.2 | 2.55 | 2.82 | 70.0 | 68.3 |
| 2060* | 55.7501 million | 61.3529 million | 30.0 | 27.4 | 2.35 | 2.59 | 71.5 | 69.6 |
| 2070* | 60.0889 million | 68.9261 million | 32.1 | 29.4 | 2.19 | 2.41 | 72.9 | 70.9 |
| 2080* | 63.6063 million | 75.5124 million | 34.3 | 31.5 | 2.08 | 2.25 | 74.3 | 72.2 |
| 2090* | 66.0999 million | 80.9926 million | 36.3 | 33.4 | 2.00 | 2.15 | 75.7 | 73.5 |
| 2100* | 67.5477 million | 85.3411 million | 38.2 | 35.2 | 1.93 | 2.06 | 77.1 | 74.8 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
GHA − MDG · 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 Ghana and which is Madagascar, 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; Ghana is drawn in solid blue squares and Madagascar 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: Ghana · Madagascar. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
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- Madagascar and Eastern Africa
Apparatus
Sources and method
Ghana and Madagascar 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.
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