How many people live in India?

How to get close to this number

Same pair, other side. Two countries sit above a billion and the rest are far behind, so this one is within a few percent of the other. The explanation resolves which is larger: the crossover happened in 2023, which is recent enough that many people still have the old ordering in mind.

The age structure explains the trajectory better than the current figure does. A median age around twenty-eight against roughly forty for the other means this population will keep growing for decades through momentum alone, even as fertility falls. Two countries of nearly identical size are on opposite demographic paths, and age is the variable that shows it.

That divergence has consequences well beyond population counts. A young population means a growing workforce and rising demand; an ageing one means the opposite, with fewer workers supporting more retirees. Most economic projections about these two countries over the next half-century reduce to this one difference in median age.