How will the world’s population change over the next eighty years? According to the United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2024 report, the global population in 2050 is expected to reach around 9.66 billion people, a growth of nearly 1.5 billion from the current population. Projections anticipate that this growth will continue until it reaches 10.3 billion people in 2084, at which time the population will begin to decline gradually.

India surpassed China as the most populated country in the world in 2023. China’s annual growth rate is currently -0.23%, while India’s growth rate is 0.89%. Given current trends in growth rates, UN projections predict that China’s population will slide under 1 billion by 2070, while India’s will expand to almost 1.7 billion.

The United States is currently the third most populated country in the world, but is expected to drop to fourth most populated sometime before 2060. The African country of Nigeria, whose growth rate is 2.08% (compared to 0.54% in the US) will become the third most populated country in the world. While UN predictions vary from those of the US Census Bureau, Nigeria takes the lead in both projections. Nigeria’s population is expected to reach 400 million by 2060, while the US will have approximately 389 million people. Vatican City / Holy See is expected to continue as the country with the smallest population in the world for the next several decades. The famous Catholic city-state has a population of 501 people.

Top 10 Countries Whose Populations Will Grow the Most by 2050:

The Earth’s population is expected to continue growing for the next 60 years. Improvements in health care technology, shared by developed countries with still developing and least-developed countries, have increased life expectancy and reduced infant mortality rates—which, in turn, have helped drive a boom in population growth. In fact, ten countries are expected to gain more in population by 2050 than the rest of the world combined.

	Country	2026 Pop.	2050 Pop.	Growth
	India	1,476,630,000	1,679,590,000	202,960,000
	Nigeria	242,432,000	359,186,000	116,754,000
	Pakistan	259,300,000	371,864,000	112,564,000
	DR Congo	116,452,000	218,246,000	101,794,000
	Ethiopia	138,902,000	225,022,000	86,120,000
	Tanzania	72,563,800	129,621,000	57,057,200
	Egypt	120,101,000	161,630,000	41,529,000
	Bangladesh	177,818,000	214,709,000	36,891,000
	Angola	40,215,200	74,295,400	34,080,200
	Indonesia	287,887,000	320,713,000	32,826,000

The rise, peak, and decline of population growth

Although the world’s population is currently increasing, trends indicate that the rate of growth in many countries, especially developed countries and those with high populations, is slowing down. By the end of this century, even the world’s fastest-growing countries are expected to have reached peak population size and begun to display declining (or negative) growth rates.

Many factors contribute to population decline and related metrics such as fertility rates. These include increased access to birth control and family planning, an increase in overall quality of life and the human development index, and various other cultural, political, social, and economic factors These include some factors that may not initially seem related to birth rate, such as the population’s general level of education and the government’s per-capita health expenditure.

Whether population growth is good or bad depends heavily upon several factors, most notably the rate of growth, the country in which it is taking place, and that country’s level of development. Countries that have mature economies and well-developed infrastructure are more likely to be able to absorb an increase in population. Conversely, developing countries are more likely to lack adequate jobs, health care, or other infrastructure to support a larger population.

Similarly, a gentle increase in population is typically considered healthy, but a high rate of growth can be undesirable. High growth can often overwhelm a country’s infrastructure, strain systems ranging from the job market to the food supply, and constrain available resources. When this happens, technological advances may offer opportunities to overcome production shortages and/or environmental damage.

World Population History (5000 B.C. - 2020 A.D.)

Throughout most of history, the world’s population has been much smaller than it is now. Before the invention of agriculture, for example, the human population was estimated to be around 15 million people at most. For comparison, the world population in 2017 (~7 billion) was roughly equal to a full 6% of the estimated 110 billion people who have ever lived.

The introduction of agriculture and the gradual movement of humanity into settled communities enabled the global population to increase gradually to around 300 million by AD 0. While this is a substantial increase, it remains a tiny fraction of the current population. For example, the Roman Empire, which historians regard as one of the strongest empires the world has ever known, probably contained around 50 million people at its height—nearly 20 million less than the population of the UK today.

The world population would not reach its first major milestone—one billion people—until the early 19th century. Then, as the industrial revolution took hold and living standards improved, the rate of population growth increased considerably. Over the next hundred years, the population of the world doubled, reaching two billion in the late 1920s.

During the 20th century, however, population growth skyrocketed. Over the past 100 years, the planet’s population has more than tripled in size. This massive increase in human population is largely due to improvements in diet, sanitation, and medicine, especially compulsory vaccination against many diseases, which have both improved life expectancy and decreased infant mortality rates all over the world.