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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Iraq and 
Yemen, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Iraq are older than 22. In Yemen, half are older than 19.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Iraq 45,074,049 people · Yemen 39,390,799
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
IRQ × YEM · 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
- 41
- Aged 15 to 64
- 56
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
IRQ × YEM · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
At today's rates, a woman in Iraq would have about 3.1 children in her lifetime. In Yemen, about 4.3. Babies born this year can expect about 73 years of life in Iraq and about 70 in Yemen.
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.
IRQ × YEM · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 48.0 million people in Iraq and 43.0 million in Yemen: about 10% more people than Yemen.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: Iraq's population is 8.5 times what it was in 1950, while Yemen's population is 9.3 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Iraq's population is still growing in 2100, and Yemen's population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects Yemen to have more people than Iraq from 2054. In 2100: 101 million in Iraq, 110 million in Yemen (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Iraq: people | Yemen: people | Iraq: half older than | Yemen: half older than | Iraq: children per woman | Yemen: children per woman | Iraq: life expectancy | Yemen: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 5.65335 million | 4.61678 million | 21.5 | 19.2 | 6.20 | 7.97 | 37.4 | 28.9 |
| 1960 | 7.02205 million | 5.53230 million | 20.4 | 19.6 | 5.30 | 7.99 | 51.5 | 33.5 |
| 1970 | 9.73561 million | 7.06528 million | 18.0 | 18.3 | 7.07 | 8.23 | 60.5 | 40.6 |
| 1980 | 13.5920 million | 9.54336 million | 16.4 | 15.8 | 6.59 | 8.71 | 60.9 | 50.6 |
| 1990 | 17.5812 million | 13.8879 million | 17.0 | 14.6 | 5.93 | 8.61 | 57.6 | 58.5 |
| 2000 | 24.4241 million | 19.6241 million | 17.9 | 15.4 | 4.92 | 6.32 | 64.9 | 62.8 |
| 2010 | 31.0454 million | 26.7544 million | 18.9 | 17.6 | 4.46 | 4.81 | 68.1 | 67.2 |
| 2023 | 45.0740 million | 39.3908 million | 21.3 | 19.2 | 3.25 | 4.59 | 72.3 | 69.3 |
| 2030* | 51.9372 million | 47.6677 million | 23.1 | 20.0 | 2.97 | 3.97 | 73.1 | 70.3 |
| 2040* | 62.2232 million | 59.1815 million | 26.2 | 22.1 | 2.66 | 3.27 | 74.1 | 71.5 |
| 2050* | 71.9287 million | 70.9764 million | 28.8 | 25.1 | 2.45 | 2.81 | 75.3 | 72.8 |
| 2060* | 80.5202 million | 82.1760 million | 31.2 | 27.8 | 2.27 | 2.50 | 76.5 | 73.9 |
| 2070* | 87.9959 million | 91.8300 million | 33.7 | 30.3 | 2.15 | 2.28 | 77.8 | 75.1 |
| 2080* | 93.7619 million | 99.7942 million | 36.2 | 33.0 | 2.05 | 2.11 | 79.0 | 76.4 |
| 2090* | 98.0040 million | 106.002 million | 38.3 | 35.7 | 1.97 | 1.99 | 80.3 | 77.7 |
| 2100* | 100.649 million | 110.036 million | 40.1 | 38.2 | 1.92 | 1.91 | 81.6 | 78.9 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
IRQ − YEM · 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 Yemen, 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 Yemen in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.
Apparatus
Sources and method
Iraq and Yemen 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.
How the median age and the “100 people” pictures are worked out, and why the pictures of every country leave the regions out: how the figures here are put together.
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