Topline
India has surpassed China as the most populous country in the world, the United Nations reportedly estimated Monday, a demographic shift that hasn’t happened since the United Nations began recording such data in 1950.
India is now the most populous country in the world.
Key Facts
India’s population is now 1,425,775,850, outpacing China, which has been the most populous country since at least 1950, The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing UN’s world population projections.
The news comes five days after the UN projected India’s population would surpass China’s by this summer—though the UN didn’t specify exactly when India would become the most populous country, and told news outlets it may have already surpassed China.
The United States remains the third-most populous, with roughly 340 million people.
Key Background
India’s population has consistently grown faster than China’s for decades, according to the World Bank. Through the 2010s, India reported an annual growth rate of around 1% or more while China’s growth rate sank to just 0.1% in 2021. The shifting population demographics follow decades of attempts in China to curb the country’s birth rates, including a one-child policy that was introduced in the 1980s and scrapped in 2015. While the one-child law initially helped slow growth, the country is now dealing with an aging population and declining birth rate, which has sparked fears of major economic implications as China’s workforce stops growing or possibly shrinks. Meanwhile, a quarter of India’s population is between 0 and 14 years old, compared with 17% in China, according to the UN.
Further Reading
India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country (The Guardian)
India Will Become The World’s Most Populous Country—Overtaking China—By This Summer, UN Says (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/24/india-surpasses-china-as-worlds-most-populous-country-un-says/