Jun. 29 – India will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation by 2025 and the combined populations of the two countries will reach nearly 3 billion by 2050, according to projections released by the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this week.
The bureau’s forecasts suggest that India will add some 467 million people to its population over the next 39 years, much more than any other nation. China, meanwhile, is expected to see its total population drop by 33 million.
By percentage increases, however, India is far from first. Ethiopia’s population is forecast to triple in size to 278 million and Nigeria is set to more than double to 402 million over the same time-frame, making them the seventh and fourth most populous countries, respectively.
Primarily through immigration, the United States is expected to add roughly 111 million people to its total population by 2050, maintaining its current ranking of third on the list with a projected population of around 422 million.
Russia and Japan, however, are slated to fall out of the top 10 most populous countries list largely due to persistently low fertility rates. Both countries are expected to see a drop in overall population, Russia by more than 29 million people and Japan by about 20 million.
Below is a chart of the top 25 most populous countries today and the U.S. Census Bureau’s population forecasts for each through to 2050. For a complete list of all 228 countries and regions included in the database, please click here.

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The estimate for India undercounts the 2011 population by 20 million according to the 2011 Indian census.
There should be more coverage of how India will absorb so many new workers.
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http://chinaoverindia.blogspot.com A China-India blog
Likewise, it could also be argued that the China count should be higher as they didn’t include any of the second children that were born illegally and didn’t receive a hukou. Estimates of those alone another 30-60 million people.
It’s very difficult to imagine (understatement) that the 2010 Chinese census left out 30-50 million kids. I would expect the overall census to be off by millions just because its a big number but it doesn’t undercount the number of kids by 1/3.
Also, China has a huge state bureacracy (offices in every county) that aggressively enforces the number of children people are permitted to have. It would be amazing if they were so bad at their job.
good news for chinese 。as a matter fact ,i live in guangzhou ,guangdong province ,china 。there are too many people in china 。in my eye ,idea population in china is five hundred million