Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

India and United States, side by side

India in 2026: half the people are older than 30. The United States: half are older than 40.

UN estimates for mid-2023: India 1,438,069,596 people · United States 343,477,335

India 1.48 billion people Half are older than 30 8 in 100 are 65 or older

United States 349 million people Half are older than 40 19 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

IND × USA · 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.

India

Children, under 15: 24
Aged 15 to 64: 68
Aged 65 and over: 8

United States

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 64
Aged 65 and over: 19

IND × USA · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in India would have about 1.9 children and a woman in the United States about 1.6. Babies born this year can expect about 73 years of life in India and about 80 in the United States.

Children per woman, 2026

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

India 1.9

United States 1.6

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.

India 73 years

United States 80 years

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

IND × USA · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

India has about 4 times as many people as the United States: 1.48 billion against 349 million.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: India's population is 4.3 times what it was in 1950, while the United States' population is 2.3 times what it was in 1950.

Looking ahead: India's population is expected to peak in 2061, and the United States' population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 1.51 billion in India, 421 million in the United States (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	India: people	United States: people	India: half older than	United States: half older than	India: children per woman	United States: children per woman	India: life expectancy	United States: life expectancy
1950	346.279 million	154.203 million	21.0	30.0	5.73	3.09	41.2	68.1
1960	435.990 million	180.275 million	20.2	29.3	5.92	3.73	45.6	69.8
1970	545.864 million	207.796 million	19.1	27.7	5.62	2.52	48.6	70.7
1980	687.354 million	229.859 million	19.9	30.1	4.78	1.86	53.6	73.7
1990	864.972 million	253.373 million	20.7	32.9	4.04	2.07	58.6	75.4
2000	1.05792 billion	281.484 million	22.2	35.3	3.35	2.03	62.8	76.8
2010	1.24348 billion	311.063 million	24.6	36.9	2.60	1.92	67.2	78.7
2023	1.43807 billion	343.477 million	29.1	39.0	1.98	1.62	72.0	79.3
2030*	1.52514 billion	355.650 million	31.8	40.6	1.88	1.63	73.6	80.4
2040*	1.62258 billion	370.209 million	35.7	41.8	1.80	1.64	75.7	81.8
2050*	1.67959 billion	380.847 million	39.3	42.9	1.76	1.64	77.5	83.2
2060*	1.70095 billion	388.918 million	42.3	44.1	1.73	1.64	79.3	84.6
2070*	1.68920 billion	398.218 million	44.6	44.7	1.72	1.64	81.0	85.8
2080*	1.64555 billion	407.080 million	46.5	45.1	1.71	1.65	82.5	87.0
2090*	1.58031 billion	414.458 million	47.9	45.8	1.70	1.65	84.0	88.1
2100*	1.50525 billion	421.279 million	48.8	46.3	1.69	1.65	85.3	89.2

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

IND − USA · 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 India and which is the United States, 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; India is drawn in solid blue squares and the United States 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: India · United States. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for India and United States 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.

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