Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Iran and Japan, side by side

Line both places up by age in 2026. In Iran, half are older than 36; in Japan, half are older than 51.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Iran 90,608,707 people · Japan 124,370,946

Iran 93.2 million people Half are older than 36 9 in 100 are 65 or older

Japan 122 million people Half are older than 51 30 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

IRN × JPN · 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.

Iran

Children, under 15: 22
Aged 15 to 64: 69
Aged 65 and over: 9

Japan

Children, under 15: 11
Aged 15 to 64: 59
Aged 65 and over: 30

IRN × JPN · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Iran would have about 1.7 children and a woman in Japan about 1.2. Babies born this year can expect about 78 years of life in Iran and about 85 in Japan.

Children per woman, 2026

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

Iran 1.7

Japan 1.2

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.

Iran 78 years

Japan 85 years

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

IRN × JPN · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

Japan has about 30% more people than Iran: 122 million against 93.2 million.

Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Iran's population is 5.6 times what it was in 1950, while Japan's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950.

Iran's population is expected to peak in 2053; Japan's population peaked in 2009. The UN expects Iran to have more people than Japan from 2055. In 2100: 80.0 million in Iran, 76.8 million in Japan (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Iran: people	Japan: people	Iran: half older than	Japan: half older than	Iran: children per woman	Japan: children per woman	Iran: life expectancy	Japan: life expectancy
1950	16.5105 million	86.4433 million	21.7	22.3	6.97	3.62	38.2	59.3
1960	21.4704 million	96.3997 million	19.0	25.7	7.52	1.98	43.3	67.7
1970	29.1451 million	106.712 million	17.5	29.3	6.80	2.04	50.2	72.0
1980	39.8423 million	118.359 million	18.2	32.7	6.63	1.74	58.4	76.1
1990	58.3801 million	123.400 million	18.1	37.9	4.93	1.51	64.1	79.0
2000	66.4187 million	127.028 million	21.2	41.8	2.00	1.35	70.2	81.2
2010	77.4208 million	128.185 million	27.1	45.2	1.75	1.36	74.4	82.9
2023	90.6087 million	124.371 million	33.9	50.0	1.70	1.21	77.7	84.7
2030*	95.4867 million	119.584 million	37.7	52.5	1.63	1.26	79.0	85.7
2040*	99.5243 million	112.158 million	41.8	54.1	1.63	1.31	81.0	87.1
2050*	101.862 million	105.123 million	44.5	53.8	1.63	1.35	82.8	88.4
2060*	100.971 million	98.1032 million	47.5	54.1	1.63	1.39	84.3	89.7
2070*	96.7073 million	90.6118 million	50.7	54.6	1.64	1.42	85.8	90.9
2080*	90.8439 million	84.7300 million	51.3	53.7	1.63	1.44	87.0	92.1
2090*	85.2486 million	80.6344 million	51.6	53.4	1.64	1.46	88.2	93.2
2100*	80.0453 million	76.8460 million	52.9	54.0	1.64	1.47	89.3	94.4

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

IRN − JPN · 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 Iran and which is Japan, 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; Iran is drawn in solid blue squares and Japan 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: Iran · Japan. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for Iran and Japan 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