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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
North Korea and 
Syria, side by side
Line both places up by age in 2026. In North Korea, half are older than 38; in Syria, half are older than 25.
UN estimates for mid-2023: North Korea 26,418,204 people · Syria 23,594,623
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
PRK × SYR · 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
- 19
- Aged 15 to 64
- 68
- Aged 65 and over
- 13
- Children, under 15
- 28
- Aged 15 to 64
- 67
- Aged 65 and over
- 5
PRK × SYR · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
At today's rates, a woman in North Korea would have about 1.8 children in her lifetime. In Syria, about 2.6. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. A baby born in North Korea this year can expect to live about 74 years. In Syria, about 73.
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.
PRK × SYR · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
There are 26.6 million people in North Korea and 26.5 million in Syria: about as many people as Syria.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: North Korea's population is 2.4 times what it was in 1950, while Syria's population is 7.3 times what it was in 1950.
North Korea's population is expected to peak in 2032; Syria's population is expected to peak in 2086. The UN expects Syria to have more people than North Korea from 2027. In 2100: 19.5 million in North Korea, 43.7 million in Syria (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | North Korea: people | Syria: people | North Korea: half older than | Syria: half older than | North Korea: children per woman | Syria: children per woman | North Korea: life expectancy | Syria: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 11.1167 million | 3.61208 million | 17.3 | 20.2 | 4.99 | 7.62 | 14.2 | 42.5 |
| 1960 | 11.7230 million | 4.67350 million | 19.9 | 17.5 | 3.57 | 7.50 | 55.8 | 52.7 |
| 1970 | 15.1728 million | 6.38061 million | 21.4 | 15.8 | 3.85 | 7.62 | 62.0 | 60.6 |
| 1980 | 18.2368 million | 8.95766 million | 22.4 | 15.5 | 2.84 | 7.12 | 67.2 | 66.5 |
| 1990 | 21.1121 million | 12.5792 million | 25.9 | 16.4 | 2.39 | 5.56 | 70.5 | 69.8 |
| 2000 | 23.6659 million | 16.6379 million | 30.1 | 18.5 | 1.94 | 4.07 | 60.9 | 70.9 |
| 2010 | 24.9873 million | 22.4824 million | 34.0 | 21.7 | 1.89 | 3.35 | 70.3 | 73.5 |
| 2023 | 26.4182 million | 23.5946 million | 37.0 | 23.3 | 1.78 | 2.71 | 73.6 | 72.1 |
| 2030* | 26.7849 million | 29.3955 million | 39.0 | 26.5 | 1.72 | 2.48 | 74.5 | 74.0 |
| 2040* | 26.5424 million | 34.5332 million | 42.1 | 30.3 | 1.69 | 2.23 | 75.7 | 75.6 |
| 2050* | 25.7871 million | 37.7934 million | 43.9 | 33.1 | 1.67 | 2.06 | 77.0 | 77.0 |
| 2060* | 24.6827 million | 40.8240 million | 44.7 | 35.0 | 1.66 | 1.95 | 78.4 | 78.5 |
| 2070* | 23.3978 million | 42.9823 million | 46.6 | 38.6 | 1.66 | 1.87 | 79.8 | 79.9 |
| 2080* | 22.1247 million | 43.8899 million | 48.0 | 41.8 | 1.65 | 1.82 | 81.2 | 81.3 |
| 2090* | 20.8217 million | 44.1231 million | 48.4 | 43.0 | 1.65 | 1.78 | 82.5 | 82.7 |
| 2100* | 19.5121 million | 43.6867 million | 49.6 | 44.3 | 1.64 | 1.76 | 83.8 | 84.0 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
PRK − SYR · 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 North Korea and which is Syria, 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; North Korea is drawn in solid blue squares and Syria 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: North Korea · Syria. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Apparatus
Sources and method
North Korea and Syria 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.
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