Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Saudi Arabia and 
United Arab Emirates, side by side
Saudi Arabia in 2026: half the people are older than 31. The United Arab Emirates: half are older than 33.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Saudi Arabia 33,264,292 people · United Arab Emirates 10,642,081
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
SAU × ARE · 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
- 24
- Aged 15 to 64
- 73
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
- Children, under 15
- 16
- Aged 15 to 64
- 82
- Aged 65 and over
- 2
SAU × ARE · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Saudi Arabia is at about 2.3 children for each woman, at this year's rates; the United Arab Emirates is at about 1.2. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. A baby born in Saudi Arabia this year can expect to live about 79 years. In the United Arab Emirates, about 83.
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.
SAU × ARE · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Saudi Arabia is the larger of the two, with about three times as many people as the United Arab Emirates: 35.2 million to 11.6 million.
Set each against its own 1950 self and Saudi Arabia's population is 20.6 times what it was in 1950, the United Arab Emirates' population is 155.3 times what it was in 1950.
Saudi Arabia's population is still growing in 2100. Meanwhile the United Arab Emirates' population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 71.0 million in Saudi Arabia, 26.1 million in the United Arab Emirates (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Saudi Arabia: people | United Arab Emirates: people | Saudi Arabia: half older than | United Arab Emirates: half older than | Saudi Arabia: children per woman | United Arab Emirates: children per woman | Saudi Arabia: life expectancy | United Arab Emirates: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 1.70327 million | 74,510 | 19.0 | 18.5 | 7.58 | 6.50 | 40.0 | 42.1 |
| 1960 | 2.43540 million | 131,330 | 18.6 | 19.6 | 7.63 | 6.50 | 45.3 | 50.6 |
| 1970 | 3.56247 million | 286,540 | 17.3 | 23.0 | 7.58 | 6.52 | 52.7 | 60.8 |
| 1980 | 6.04800 million | 1.01570 million | 18.1 | 26.2 | 7.14 | 5.95 | 62.4 | 68.2 |
| 1990 | 10.6407 million | 1.89822 million | 19.0 | 25.9 | 5.80 | 4.51 | 68.9 | 71.1 |
| 2000 | 16.1777 million | 3.49358 million | 20.7 | 28.3 | 4.21 | 2.73 | 72.6 | 76.3 |
| 2010 | 25.1571 million | 6.93836 million | 24.5 | 31.7 | 2.81 | 1.56 | 75.6 | 81.9 |
| 2023 | 33.2643 million | 10.6421 million | 30.2 | 32.2 | 2.28 | 1.20 | 78.7 | 82.9 |
| 2030* | 37.4438 million | 12.1906 million | 30.7 | 32.8 | 2.17 | 1.23 | 80.3 | 84.0 |
| 2040* | 42.5922 million | 13.6938 million | 31.7 | 33.3 | 1.98 | 1.28 | 82.3 | 85.4 |
| 2050* | 47.6939 million | 15.3674 million | 33.0 | 33.6 | 1.88 | 1.33 | 84.0 | 86.6 |
| 2060* | 52.6791 million | 17.2148 million | 34.0 | 33.7 | 1.81 | 1.36 | 85.5 | 87.6 |
| 2070* | 57.4625 million | 19.3343 million | 35.0 | 34.1 | 1.77 | 1.39 | 86.9 | 88.7 |
| 2080* | 61.9654 million | 21.6174 million | 35.8 | 34.6 | 1.75 | 1.41 | 88.1 | 89.6 |
| 2090* | 66.4651 million | 23.8529 million | 36.4 | 34.8 | 1.73 | 1.44 | 89.3 | 90.6 |
| 2100* | 71.0067 million | 26.1343 million | 36.8 | 34.9 | 1.72 | 1.46 | 90.3 | 91.6 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
SAU − ARE · 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 Saudi Arabia and which is the United Arab Emirates, 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; Saudi Arabia is drawn in solid blue squares and the United Arab Emirates 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: Saudi Arabia · United Arab Emirates. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
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.
The working behind the median age, the rounding in the “100 people” pictures and the reason the regions are kept out of the all-country views are all set out in the method.
This is one of 250 pairs with a page. The boxes at the top will take any other two places you want to see side by side.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries