The 10 Most Populated Countries in the World

India is the most populated country in the world with more than 1.45 billion people, a title it took from China in 2023 after decades of chasing. That handover is historic: China had been the most populous country for centuries, and its population is now falling, having peaked in 2021. Between them, the two Asian giants hold roughly one in three people alive today.

The table is less stable than it looks. Ethiopia only recently displaced Mexico from tenth place, and UN projections have Pakistan climbing to fourth by the mid-2040s. Nigeria is the fastest riser of the group and the reason Africa, not Asia, is projected to drive most of the population growth for the rest of the century.

The best illustration of how little area has to do with population is sitting in the middle of the list. Bangladesh has nearly 30 million more people than Russia while occupying less than one percent of its land. Russia, the largest country on Earth, only just makes the population top ten, and is shrinking.

A note on precision: nobody has counted these people. The figures are United Nations estimates built from censuses of varying age and quality, so treat the last few digits as decoration. What matters for quizzes and general knowledge is the order, and the rough sizes: two countries above 1.4 billion, one above 340 million, then a long tail down through the hundreds of millions.