Kiribati population

On the UN's projection, Kiribati will have the most working-age people it ever has in 2096: 144,714 people aged 15–64. In 2023 it had 80,781.

aged 15–64   children under 15   aged 65 and over

How to read this: take 100 people of working age — the orange row — and the two rows under it are the children (teal) and the people of 65 and over (violet) who lived alongside them in 2023.

At no point between 1950 and 2100 do fewer than 50 dependants live alongside every 100 people aged 15–64 here.

fewer than 50 dependants per 100   the same, projected   50 or more

How to read this: the strip runs 1950 to 2100. Coloured years are the ones with under 50 dependants for every 100 people aged 15–64; grey years are the rest, and a hatched year has not happened yet.

How every country compares

In 2020–2025 Kiribati loses 389 people a year: everyone who arrives, minus everyone who leaves. The age at which that happens most is 25–29, at 63 a year more leaving than arriving.

more arrive than leave   more leave than arrive

How to read this: age runs left to right, babies to 100. A blue square above the line means arrivals outnumber departures at that age, an orange square below it means the opposite. The figures are the UN's projection for 2020–2025; nobody recorded migration by age before 2020.

Its best and worst years between 1950 and 2023: a gain of 0 (1950), and a loss of 1,858 (1978).

In 2024, 3,302 people living in Kiribati had been born in another country, 3 of every 100 people there, against 3 in 1990.

How migration works everywhere

Of every 100 babies born in Kiribati in 2023, 8 had a mother under 20, 74 a mother aged 20 to 34 and 18 a mother aged 35 or older. In 1950 it was 12 under 20 and 18 aged 35 or older.

The mother's age: under 20 20 to 34 35 or older projected

How to read this: one block a year, 100 squares in each, a square for every hundredth baby. The colour is the mother's age group, and the three numbers underneath are those groups in order, youngest first.

Babies born, 2023

3,421

Average age when women have a baby

29.1 years

29.2 in 1950

Babies a year per 1,000 girls aged 15–19

44

102 in 1950

UNHCR publishes no refugees, asylum-seekers or displaced people in or from Kiribati at the end of 2025.

An empty row is not the same as a zero. These figures cover the people one agency works with, so a country it has no operation in has nothing to report here.

In 2025, 18 people from Kiribati asked for asylum in another country. Who asks for asylum, and who is given it

How the world's displacement is counted

Of every 100 people in Kiribati in 2025, 66 lived in a town or suburb and 34 in the countryside.

How to read this: everyone here, shrunk to 100 squares, with the colour saying whether that hundredth person lives in a city, a town or the countryside. Every country is measured by the same rule.

How the world's people live

Of every 100 adults in Kiribati in 2020, 9 never went to school and 46 finished upper secondary or went further.

The young went further: 3.6 of every 100 women aged 25–29 never went to school, against 16.9 of every 100 aged 60–64 (men: 6.6 against 12.2).

Its people aged 15 to 64 are projected to be most numerous in 2070; the ones who finished upper secondary are most numerous later, in 2075.

How to read this: 100 squares, one for every hundredth adult aged 25 or over, from least schooling on the left to most on the right. Counted by the Wittgenstein Centre for 2020.

How far the world's people went in school

No place in Kiribati is big and dense enough to count as a city under the UN's rule — at least 50,000 people, living 1,500 or more to the square kilometre.

All the world's cities