Countries by Population, total

Ranking 2024

Analysis

This metric measures total population across 216 countries using the World Bank's indicator SP.POP.TOTL. Per the source definition: total population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship, and the values shown are midyear estimates. The unit is an absolute headcount with no normalization for area or density. All 216 countries in the dataset have data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. Twenty extreme outliers were identified using a three-standard-deviation threshold, reflecting the extreme concentration of population in a small number of very large countries.

The top of the ranking is heavily concentrated in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. India (rank 1) and China (rank 2) together account for more than 2.8 billion people. The United States ranks 3rd at 340,110,988, followed by Indonesia (rank 4, 283,487,931) and Pakistan (rank 5, 251,269,164). Nigeria (rank 6, 232,679,478) is the most populous country in Africa. Brazil (rank 7, 211,998,573) and Bangladesh (rank 8, 173,562,364) round out the top eight, with Bangladesh notable for achieving this rank despite being a relatively small country by land area. Large absolute population totals at the top reflect a combination of high historical birth rates and long demographic accumulation.

The middle of the ranking includes countries with populations between roughly 10 million and 50 million. Several counterintuitive placements stand out. Canada (rank 37, 41,288,599) sits adjacent to Yemen (rank 38, 40,583,164), despite Canada being one of the world's largest countries by land area. Ukraine (rank 41, 37,860,221) ranks near Angola (rank 40, 37,885,849) and Morocco (rank 39, 38,081,173). In the lower portion of the ranking, many small island states and territories appear: Fiji ranks 161st at 928,784, and Palau ranks 214th at just 17,695. Nauru (rank 215, 11,947) and Tuvalu (rank 216, 9,646) are the two smallest entries by population.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The de facto definition counts all residents regardless of legal status, which means large expatriate or migrant worker populations can significantly affect rankings for countries such as the United Arab Emirates (rank 85, 10,986,400) and Qatar (rank 139, 2,857,822), where non-citizen residents form a large share of the total. The figures are midyear estimates, not census counts, and estimation methodologies vary by country. Countries affected by conflict, displacement, or contested borders may have less reliable estimates. The dataset includes dependent territories and special administrative regions alongside sovereign states, making direct comparisons across all 216 entries uneven in some respects.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SP.POP.TOTL, for the reference year 2024. The source defines the metric as follows: total population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship, and the values shown are midyear estimates. The dataset covers 216 countries, all of which meet the recency threshold with data from the last seven years (100% coverage). All datapoints are classified as official quality (100%), exceeding the 70% quality threshold. The average year-over-year change across the dataset is 1.4%, well within the 50% volatility threshold. Twenty extreme outliers were flagged using a three-standard-deviation threshold, driven by the outsized populations of India and China relative to the rest of the distribution. The value range spans from 9,646 (Tuvalu) to 1,450,935,791 (India), a spread of over 15 million percent.

Sources

• World Bank