Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Ghana and Nigeria, side by side

Line both places up by age in 2026. In Ghana, half are older than 23; in Nigeria, half are older than 19.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Ghana 33,787,914 people · Nigeria 227,882,945

Ghana 35.7 million people Half are older than 23 4 in 100 are 65 or older

Nigeria 242 million people Half are older than 19 3 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

GHA × NGA · 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.

Ghana

Children, under 15: 35
Aged 15 to 64: 61
Aged 65 and over: 4

Nigeria

Children, under 15: 40
Aged 15 to 64: 57
Aged 65 and over: 3

GHA × NGA · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Ghana would have about 3.3 children and a woman in Nigeria about 4.2. A baby born in Ghana this year can expect to live about 66 years. In Nigeria, about 55.

Children per woman, 2026

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

Ghana 3.3

Nigeria 4.2

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.

Ghana 66 years

Nigeria 55 years

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

GHA × NGA · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

Nigeria has about 7 times as many people as Ghana: 242 million against 35.7 million.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Ghana's population is 7.0 times what it was in 1950, while Nigeria's population is 6.5 times what it was in 1950.

Ghana's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile Nigeria's population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 67.5 million in Ghana, 477 million in Nigeria (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Ghana: people	Nigeria: people	Ghana: half older than	Nigeria: half older than	Ghana: children per woman	Nigeria: children per woman	Ghana: life expectancy	Nigeria: life expectancy
1950	5.08066 million	37.2830 million	18.7	19.1	6.70	6.42	43.1	35.5
1960	6.96121 million	45.0538 million	17.7	19.3	6.89	6.36	46.9	37.2
1970	8.92581 million	55.8938 million	15.9	18.9	6.95	6.47	47.9	40.0
1980	11.9414 million	73.7646 million	16.6	17.7	6.47	6.85	51.1	46.0
1990	15.3947 million	97.1209 million	17.1	17.2	5.74	6.46	55.4	45.7
2000	19.6371 million	126.382 million	18.3	17.8	4.83	6.12	58.1	47.1
2010	25.4750 million	166.643 million	20.2	17.7	4.18	5.95	61.3	51.3
2023	33.7879 million	227.883 million	21.9	18.8	3.40	4.48	65.5	54.5
2030*	38.2221 million	262.381 million	23.4	20.3	3.10	3.82	66.8	55.5
2040*	44.5684 million	312.710 million	25.8	22.7	2.78	3.10	68.5	57.1
2050*	50.5530 million	359.186 million	28.0	24.9	2.55	2.66	70.0	58.5
2060*	55.7501 million	399.785 million	30.0	27.3	2.35	2.39	71.5	59.9
2070*	60.0889 million	433.486 million	32.1	29.8	2.19	2.20	72.9	61.2
2080*	63.6063 million	457.922 million	34.3	32.0	2.08	2.07	74.3	62.5
2090*	66.0999 million	471.886 million	36.3	33.8	2.00	1.98	75.7	63.6
2100*	67.5477 million	476.748 million	38.2	35.3	1.93	1.91	77.1	64.7

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

GHA − NGA · 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 Nigeria, 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 Nigeria in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.

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Keep exploring

Each place on its own: Ghana · Nigeria. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for Ghana and Nigeria 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