Tonga population

On the UN's projection, Tonga will have the most working-age people it ever has in 2071: 74,118 people aged 15–64. In 2023 it had 60,430.

aged 15–64   children under 15   aged 65 and over

How to read this: one orange square for each of 100 people aged 15–64 in 2023. Beneath them, teal for the children living alongside those 100 and violet for the people aged 65 or older.

Fewer than 50 dependants live alongside every 100 people aged 15–64 in 7 years: 2064–2070.

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

How to read this: 1950 on the left, 2100 on the right; coloured in the years with fewer than 50 dependants per 100 working-age people, grey in the rest, hatched where that is a projection.

How every country compares

In 2020–2025 Tonga loses 2,148 people a year: everyone who arrives, minus everyone who leaves. The age at which that happens most is 20–24, at 405 a year more leaving than arriving.

more arrive than leave   more leave than arrive

How to read this: each column is one age, youngest on the left. Above the line, in blue, are the ages gaining people; below it, in orange, the ages losing them. This is the UN's projection for 2020–2025 — the record of migration by age does not go back beyond 2020.

In the years that were counted, 1950–2023, the most it gained in one year was 0 (1950) and the most it lost was 2,840 (1983).

In 2024, 3,581 people living in Tonga 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 Tonga in 2023, 6 had a mother under 20, 75 a mother aged 20 to 34 and 19 a mother aged 35 or older. In 1950 it was 8 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: shrink a year's babies to 100 and colour each one by the age of its mother — that is a block. Under it, the same three groups as numbers, starting with the youngest mothers.

Babies born, 2023

2,418

Average age when women have a baby

29.9 years

30.4 in 1950

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

25

66 in 1950

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

Read that as a gap in the record, not as a finding. The count reaches as far as one agency's work reaches, and no further.

In 2025, 399 people from Tonga asked for asylum in another country. Of every 100 people from Tonga whose claims were decided that year, 1 were given protection. Who asks for asylum, and who is given it

How the world's displacement is counted

Of every 100 people in Tonga in 2025, 61 lived in a town or suburb and 39 in the countryside.

How to read this: one square for every hundredth person, coloured as the key shows. Because the rule behind the colours is the same everywhere, two countries' squares can be compared directly.

How the world's people live

Of every 100 adults in Tonga in 2020, 1 never went to school and 34 finished upper secondary or went further.

Its people aged 15 to 64 are projected to be most numerous in 2055; the ones who finished upper secondary are most numerous later, in 2070.

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 Tonga 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