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Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
Syria and 
Venezuela, side by side
Line both places up by age in 2026. In Syria, half are older than 25; in Venezuela, half are older than 31.
UN estimates for mid-2023: Syria 23,594,623 people · Venezuela 28,300,854
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
SYR × VEN · 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
- 28
- Aged 15 to 64
- 67
- Aged 65 and over
- 5
- Children, under 15
- 24
- Aged 15 to 64
- 65
- Aged 65 and over
- 11
SYR × VEN · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
Syria is at about 2.6 children for each woman, at this year's rates; Venezuela is at about 2.0. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. Babies born this year can expect about 73 years of life in Syria and about 73 in Venezuela.
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.
SYR × VEN · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
Venezuela is the larger of the two, with about as many people as Syria: 28.6 million to 26.5 million.
Set each against its own 1950 self and Syria's population is 7.3 times what it was in 1950, Venezuela's population is 5.2 times what it was in 1950.
Looking ahead: Syria's population is expected to peak in 2086, and Venezuela's population is expected to peak in 2057. The UN expects Syria to have more people than Venezuela from 2030. In 2100: 43.7 million in Syria, 28.3 million in Venezuela (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | Syria: people | Venezuela: people | Syria: half older than | Venezuela: half older than | Syria: children per woman | Venezuela: children per woman | Syria: life expectancy | Venezuela: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 3.61208 million | 5.48885 million | 20.2 | 17.1 | 7.62 | 6.63 | 42.5 | 51.1 |
| 1960 | 4.67350 million | 8.16009 million | 17.5 | 16.5 | 7.50 | 6.38 | 52.7 | 58.4 |
| 1970 | 6.38061 million | 11.3878 million | 15.8 | 16.9 | 7.62 | 5.32 | 60.6 | 64.8 |
| 1980 | 8.95766 million | 15.2582 million | 15.5 | 18.8 | 7.12 | 4.20 | 66.5 | 68.2 |
| 1990 | 12.5792 million | 19.8270 million | 16.4 | 20.7 | 5.56 | 3.45 | 69.8 | 71.0 |
| 2000 | 16.6379 million | 24.5267 million | 18.5 | 23.0 | 4.07 | 2.79 | 70.9 | 72.4 |
| 2010 | 22.4824 million | 28.8131 million | 21.7 | 25.8 | 3.35 | 2.40 | 73.5 | 73.1 |
| 2023 | 23.5946 million | 28.3009 million | 23.3 | 30.0 | 2.71 | 2.08 | 72.1 | 72.5 |
| 2030* | 29.3955 million | 29.1518 million | 26.5 | 31.2 | 2.48 | 1.99 | 74.0 | 73.7 |
| 2040* | 34.5332 million | 30.4954 million | 30.3 | 33.9 | 2.23 | 1.90 | 75.6 | 75.3 |
| 2050* | 37.7934 million | 31.0949 million | 33.1 | 37.5 | 2.06 | 1.83 | 77.0 | 76.9 |
| 2060* | 40.8240 million | 31.1979 million | 35.0 | 40.3 | 1.95 | 1.79 | 78.5 | 78.5 |
| 2070* | 42.9823 million | 30.9576 million | 38.6 | 41.9 | 1.87 | 1.76 | 79.9 | 80.0 |
| 2080* | 43.8899 million | 30.4560 million | 41.8 | 44.3 | 1.82 | 1.74 | 81.3 | 81.5 |
| 2090* | 44.1231 million | 29.6200 million | 43.0 | 46.4 | 1.78 | 1.73 | 82.7 | 82.9 |
| 2100* | 43.6867 million | 28.2806 million | 44.3 | 47.4 | 1.76 | 1.72 | 84.0 | 84.2 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
SYR − VEN · 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 Syria and which is Venezuela, 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; Syria is drawn in solid blue squares and Venezuela 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
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.
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