Sovereign and dependent territory rows of the World Bank “Population, total” indicator (top 30 by most recent year). Values are in millions, rounded to two decimals. Aggregates such as regions and income groups (region.id === “NA”) are excluded.
Chart ready. Press play to start.
How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “World Population by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by the World Bank (World Bank indicator code SP.POP.TOTL). Values are expressed in million people.
What to watch. India passing China around 2023 is the headline, but the quieter drama is Nigeria: from 45 million in the 1960s to over 220 million, closing in on third-placed United States. The chart is quietly previewing the next half-century.
Caveats. Population series interpolate between censuses and are revised retroactively when new counts arrive — the exact year India passed China shifts depending on the estimate. Read the crossover as “around 2023” rather than a precise date.
Trends in the data
The 30-country average rose from 78.83 million in 1960 to 208.46 million in 2024, a 2.6× increase. The largest absolute gain is India’s +1,014.95 million (435.99 → 1,450.94, 3.33×), followed by China +741.90 (2.11×), Pakistan +205.56 (5.50×) and Indonesia +195.19 (3.21×). In multiples Pakistan leads at 5.50×, with Nigeria next at 5.17× (45.05 → 232.68 million), then Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
When the lead changed hands depends on whose estimate you use. UN figures put India ahead of China in 2023; the World Bank data behind this ranking has the crossover earlier, in 2021, with India at 1,414.20 million against China’s 1,412.36 million. Population estimates are built by interpolating between censuses, so each new census revises the past. A single-point event like a change of leader is the most exposed to that kind of discrepancy.
Rank movement is fiercest in Africa and Asia. Ethiopia climbed from 24th to 10th, the DRC from 27th to 15th, Pakistan from 13th to 5th, Nigeria from 14th to 6th, Egypt from 19th to 13th and Iran from 23rd to 17th. Falling the other way are Italy (11th → 25th), Germany (7th → 19th), the United Kingdom (9th → 21st), France (12th → 23rd) and South Korea (21st → 29th). Europe’s major economies have retreated across the board.
Japan sits in the same current. It had 93.22 million people and ranked 5th in 1960; in 2024 it has 123.98 million and ranks 12th. In this series Japan peaked at 128.07 million in 2010 and has lost about four million in the fourteen years since. Its population is still 30% larger than in 1960 while its rank has dropped seven places — a result of how fast other countries grew rather than of Japan shrinking. Explaining the fall in rank by domestic decline alone would be a misreading.
Trivia quiz
Around what year did the UN estimate world population reached 8 billion?
2022 (November). Given it was 1 billion in 1804 and 2 billion in 1927, the acceleration of growth is striking. (Source)
What is the term for the fertility level at which a population exactly replaces itself over time?
Replacement-level fertility, roughly 2.07 children per woman in low-mortality countries. (Source)
What is the name for the period when a high share of working-age people boosts economic growth?
The demographic dividend; the opposite, when ageing raises the burden, is sometimes called a demographic onus. (Source)