Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

Iraq and South Korea, side by side

Line both places up by age in 2026. In Iraq, half are older than 22; in South Korea, half are older than 47.

UN estimates for mid-2023: Iraq 45,074,049 people · South Korea 51,748,739

Iraq 48.0 million people Half are older than 22 4 in 100 are 65 or older

South Korea 51.6 million people Half are older than 47 21 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

IRQ × KOR · 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.

Iraq

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

South Korea

Children, under 15: 10
Aged 15 to 64: 69
Aged 65 and over: 21

IRQ × KOR · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in Iraq would have about 3.1 children and a woman in South Korea about 0.8. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. A baby born in Iraq this year can expect to live about 73 years. In South Korea, about 85.

Children per woman, 2026

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

Iraq 3.1

South Korea 0.8

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.

Iraq 73 years

South Korea 85 years

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

IRQ × KOR · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

South Korea is the larger of the two, with about as many people as Iraq: 51.6 million to 48.0 million.

Iraq's population is 8.5 times what it was in 1950; South Korea's population is 2.6 times what it was in 1950.

Iraq's population is still growing in 2100; South Korea's population peaked in 2020. The UN expects Iraq to have more people than South Korea from 2030. In 2100: 101 million in Iraq, 21.8 million in South Korea (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	Iraq: people	South Korea: people	Iraq: half older than	South Korea: half older than	Iraq: children per woman	South Korea: children per woman	Iraq: life expectancy	South Korea: life expectancy
1950	5.65335 million	19.7573 million	21.5	18.7	6.20	6.06	37.4	22.2
1960	7.02205 million	26.1154 million	20.4	19.3	5.30	5.99	51.5	53.8
1970	9.73561 million	32.5422 million	18.0	18.7	7.07	4.46	60.5	62.2
1980	13.5920 million	38.1411 million	16.4	21.9	6.59	2.73	60.9	64.8
1990	17.5812 million	44.0814 million	17.0	26.8	5.93	1.60	57.6	71.0
2000	24.4241 million	46.7667 million	17.9	31.7	4.92	1.47	64.9	76.2
2010	31.0454 million	48.7693 million	18.9	37.6	4.46	1.23	68.1	80.7
2023	45.0740 million	51.7487 million	21.3	45.5	3.25	0.72	72.3	84.3
2030*	51.9372 million	51.1886 million	23.1	49.5	2.97	0.81	73.1	85.1
2040*	62.2232 million	48.9487 million	26.2	54.3	2.66	0.93	74.1	86.2
2050*	71.9287 million	45.1431 million	28.8	57.7	2.45	1.03	75.3	87.3
2060*	80.5202 million	39.8572 million	31.2	61.1	2.27	1.10	76.5	88.5
2070*	87.9959 million	34.4530 million	33.7	62.5	2.15	1.16	77.8	89.6
2080*	93.7619 million	29.6715 million	36.2	64.0	2.05	1.21	79.0	90.7
2090*	98.0040 million	25.4491 million	38.3	62.2	1.97	1.26	80.3	91.9
2100*	100.649 million	21.8488 million	40.1	60.9	1.92	1.30	81.6	93.1

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

IRQ − KOR · 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 Iraq and which is South Korea, 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; Iraq is drawn in solid blue squares and South Korea 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: Iraq · South Korea. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Both sides of this comparison come from the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects 2024 — the same release, the same tables, counted to 2023 and projected beyond it on the medium variant. That shared origin is what a comparison rests on.

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.

250 comparisons have a page of their own; any other two places can be compared from the boxes at the top.

Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries