Countries by Number of infant deaths
India ranks 1st globally with 567,211 infant deaths in 2023, followed by Nigeria at 443,714 and Pakistan at 341,323. At the other end, San Marino recorded zero infant deaths, while Andorra and Monaco each recorded just one. The gap between the top and bottom of this ranking spans more than half a million deaths.
Ranking 2023
Analysis
This metric counts the absolute number of infants dying before reaching one year of age in a given year, as defined by the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code SH.DTH.IMRT). The unit is an absolute count, not a rate, which means larger populations will generally produce higher totals regardless of underlying mortality conditions. Data covers 196 countries for the year 2023, with 100% of data points classified as official quality and all 196 countries having data from within the last seven years. The viability check identified 30 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, reflecting the wide spread in the data: values range from 0 to 567,211, a spread of 999%.
The top of the ranking is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. India leads at rank 1 with 567,211 infant deaths, followed by Nigeria at rank 2 with 443,714 and Pakistan at rank 3 with 341,323. Congo, Dem. Rep. ranks 4th with 190,533, and Ethiopia ranks 5th with 145,121. These high totals reflect a combination of large birth cohorts and elevated infant mortality conditions. Within Africa, Niger (rank 9, 71,882), Tanzania (rank 10, 69,284), and Mali (rank 13, 53,652) also appear in the top 15, underscoring the concentration of infant deaths across the continent's high-fertility, high-mortality countries.
Several counterintuitive placements emerge in the middle and lower portions of the ranking. China, despite being the world's most populous country for much of recent history, ranks only 22nd with 40,795 infant deaths. The United States ranks 37th with 20,317 infant deaths, placing it between Zimbabwe (rank 38, 20,006) and Viet Nam (rank 39, 19,638). High-income countries including the United Kingdom (rank 82, 2,719), France (rank 87, 2,260), and Germany (rank 89, 2,225) appear well into the ranking due to their large absolute birth populations. Japan ranks 101st with 1,359 infant deaths, just behind Canada at rank 98 with 1,576.
Because this metric measures absolute counts rather than rates, it conflates population size with mortality conditions. A country with a large birth cohort but low infant mortality rate can outrank a smaller country with far worse mortality conditions. Reporting reliability may also vary across lower-income countries, where civil registration systems are less complete, potentially leading to undercounts in some of the highest-ranking nations. The 30 extreme outliers flagged in the viability checks reflect this wide distributional spread and should be interpreted in the context of each country's population size.
Methodology
Data is drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.DTH.IMRT, for the reference year 2023. The metric is defined as the number of infants dying before reaching one year of age. Values are absolute counts, not rates. The dataset covers 196 countries, all of which have data from within the last seven years, and 100% of data points are classified as official quality. The viability checks identified 30 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold. The range runs from 0 (San Marino) to 567,211 (India), representing a 999% spread. Average year-over-year change across the dataset is 4.3%. Because counts are not normalized by birth cohort size, rankings reflect population scale as well as mortality conditions.