India has overtaken China as the most populous nation in the world, according to United Nations data. The country took the top spot as about 23 million babies were born there in 2022, while China's population began to decline for the first time in six decades from about 9.56 million newborns last year, according to Bloomberg.
According to UN estimates, India's population will exceed 1.4286 billion in mid-2023, slightly more than China's 1.4257 billion. China's statistics did not include Hong Kong and Macau, special administrative regions of China and Taiwan. It said the growing population would add urgency to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to create jobs for millions of people. The country, where half of the population is under 30 years old, will become the world's fastest growing economy in the coming years, writes Bloomberg.
India is now home to nearly a fifth of humanity, more than the entire population of Europe, Africa or the Americas, and is projected to continue to grow to reach 1.668 billion by 2050, when China's population is projected to decline to around 1.317 billion .
Overall, the world's population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, and preliminary UN projections suggest it could rise to around 8.5 billion in 2030 and reach 9.7 billion in 2050. It is projected to peak at around 10.4 billion in the 2080s and remain at that figure until 2100.
According to UN estimates, most of the projected increase in world population between 2022 and 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2022 the country's population grew by more than 1 million people, which became a record figure for the entire history of the country.