Taiwan population

Taiwan had the most working-age people it is ever expected to have in 2013: 17,429,300 people aged 15–64, against 16,258,500 in 2023.

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.

Fewer than 50 dependants live alongside every 100 people aged 15–64 in 39 years: 1990–2028.

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

How to read this: one stripe a year from 1950 to 2100. A stripe takes colour in a year when fewer than 50 dependants live alongside every 100 people of working age, and stays grey otherwise; hatching means the year is projected.

How every country compares

In 2020–2025 Taiwan loses 50,077 people a year: everyone who arrives, minus everyone who leaves. The age at which that happens most is 30–34, at 7,801 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.

Across the counted years, 1950 to 2023, its biggest single-year gain was 72,215 (1966); its biggest loss, 145,743 (2021).

How migration works everywhere

Of every 100 babies born in Taiwan in 2023, 1 had a mother under 20, 67 a mother aged 20 to 34 and 32 a mother aged 35 or older. In 1950 it was 7 under 20 and 19 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

132,404

Average age when women have a baby

31.9 years

30.4 in 1950

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

3

63 in 1950

UNHCR publishes no refugees, asylum-seekers or displaced people in or from Taiwan 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.

How the world's displacement is counted

Of every 100 people in Taiwan in 2025, 78 lived in a city, 17 in a town or suburb and 5 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 Taiwan in 2020, 1 never went to school and 71 finished upper secondary or went further.

Its people aged 15 to 64 were most numerous in 2020, the first year counted, and are never as many again in the middle projection; nor are the ones who finished upper secondary.

How to read this: the row is the adults (25 and over) shrunk to 100 people, coloured by how far each went in school, least schooling on the left. The Wittgenstein Centre's count, 2020.

How far the world's people went in school

Taiwan had 21 cities in 2025, home to 18.1 million people. The largest, Taipei, holds 40 of every 100 people in Taiwan.

1. Taipei9,136,792
2. Taichung2,268,685
3. Kaohsiung2,187,455
4. Tainan979,987
5. Hsinchu695,677
6. Zhanghua City461,552
7. Chiayi436,393
8. Yuanlin City310,380
9. Dazhuang240,428
10. Pingtung City175,377

How to read this: the 10 largest cities in 2025, bars on one scale. A city is the whole built-up area on the UN's rule, not the city's own boundary.

All the world's cities