Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Nigeria and 
South Africa, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in Nigeria are older than 19. In South Africa, half are older than 30.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Nigeria 227,882,945 people · South Africa 63,212,384
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
NGA × ZAF · 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
- 40
- Aged 15 to 64
- 57
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
- Children, under 15
- 26
- Aged 15 to 64
- 67
- Aged 65 and over
- 7
NGA × ZAF · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Nigeria is at about 4.2 children for each woman, at this year's rates; South Africa is at about 2.2. Life expectancy at birth this year: about 55 years in Nigeria, about 67 in South Africa.
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.
NGA × ZAF · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Nigeria is the larger of the two, with about 4 times as many people as South Africa: 242 million to 65.5 million.
Nigeria's population is 6.5 times what it was in 1950; South Africa's population is 5.0 times what it was in 1950.
Nigeria's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile South Africa's population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 477 million in Nigeria, 94.3 million in South Africa (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Nigeria: people | South Africa: people | Nigeria: half older than | South Africa: half older than | Nigeria: children per woman | South Africa: children per woman | Nigeria: life expectancy | South Africa: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 37.2830 million | 13.0385 million | 19.1 | 20.2 | 6.42 | 6.03 | 35.5 | 43.1 |
| 1960 | 45.0538 million | 16.4402 million | 19.3 | 18.9 | 6.36 | 6.11 | 37.2 | 52.6 |
| 1970 | 55.8938 million | 22.2800 million | 18.9 | 18.7 | 6.47 | 5.63 | 40.0 | 55.7 |
| 1980 | 73.7646 million | 29.5189 million | 17.7 | 19.4 | 6.85 | 4.78 | 46.0 | 60.0 |
| 1990 | 97.1209 million | 40.7463 million | 17.2 | 21.3 | 6.46 | 3.72 | 45.7 | 62.9 |
| 2000 | 126.382 million | 47.1597 million | 17.8 | 21.8 | 6.12 | 2.41 | 47.1 | 58.4 |
| 2010 | 166.643 million | 52.3441 million | 17.7 | 24.6 | 5.95 | 2.44 | 51.3 | 58.9 |
| 2023 | 227.883 million | 63.2124 million | 18.8 | 29.2 | 4.48 | 2.22 | 54.5 | 66.1 |
| 2030* | 262.381 million | 68.1614 million | 20.3 | 30.6 | 3.82 | 2.10 | 55.5 | 67.3 |
| 2040* | 312.710 million | 74.0356 million | 22.7 | 32.0 | 3.10 | 1.98 | 57.1 | 68.9 |
| 2050* | 359.186 million | 79.1773 million | 24.9 | 33.3 | 2.66 | 1.89 | 58.5 | 70.3 |
| 2060* | 399.785 million | 83.4435 million | 27.3 | 35.0 | 2.39 | 1.84 | 59.9 | 71.7 |
| 2070* | 433.486 million | 86.8570 million | 29.8 | 36.2 | 2.20 | 1.80 | 61.2 | 73.1 |
| 2080* | 457.922 million | 89.6741 million | 32.0 | 37.2 | 2.07 | 1.77 | 62.5 | 74.5 |
| 2090* | 471.886 million | 92.1607 million | 33.8 | 38.3 | 1.98 | 1.75 | 63.6 | 75.9 |
| 2100* | 476.748 million | 94.3144 million | 35.3 | 39.3 | 1.91 | 1.74 | 64.7 | 77.3 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
NGA − ZAF · 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 Nigeria and which is South Africa, 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; Nigeria is drawn in solid blue squares and South Africa 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: Nigeria · South Africa. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Other comparisons
- China and Nigeria
- Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria
- Ethiopia and Nigeria
- Germany and Nigeria
- Ghana and Nigeria
- India and Nigeria
- Indonesia and Nigeria
- Japan and Nigeria
- Nigeria and South Korea
- Nigeria and United States
- France and South Africa
- Kenya and South Africa
- South Africa and Sudan
- South Africa and Thailand
- South Africa and Uganda
- South Africa and United Kingdom
- South Africa and Vietnam
- Nigeria and Western Africa
- South Africa and Southern Africa
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.
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.
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