Hyderabad (Telangana): India has overtaken China to become the world's most populous country, according to the latest United Nations data. India now has a population of 1428.6 million people, compared to China's 1425.7 million.
India's population has grown by over one billion since the United Nations began gathering population data in 1950. China's population shrank for the first time since 1960 last year, as its birth rates plunged and its workforce aged. In 2016, Beijing ended its strict "one-child policy," which was imposed in the 1980s amid fears of overpopulation, and in 2021 started allowing couples to have up to three children.
The world population is set to hit 8.045 billion by mid-2023, according to UN data. In Africa, the second-largest continent, the population is expected to surge from 1.4 billion to 3.9 billion by 2100. There are eight countries in the world that has more than 10 million inhabitants. All these countries, mostly in Europe, have seen their populations shrink in the past decade. Japan's population has also declined due to its ageing problem. The island country has lost over three million inhabitants between 2011 and 2021.
The population of the entire planet is projected to peak at 10.4 billion and then decline in the 2090s, according to the UN. Future population growth is highly dependent on future fertility rates. The World Population Prospects (2022) predicts that global fertility will fall from 2.3 children per woman in 2021 to 2.1 in 2050. However, significant gains in life expectancy have been achieved globally in recent years, with life expectancy at birth expected to rise from 72.8 years in 2019 to 77.2 years in 2050.
International migration is a much smaller component of population change than births or deaths, but in some countries and areas, its impact on population size is significant. Between 2010 and 2021, seventeen countries or areas are expected to see a net inflow of more than one million migrants, while ten countries will see a net outflow of a similar magnitude.
