India is set to become the world‘s most populous country by June 2023, surpassing China by nearly three million. This is what emerges in the “State of World Inhabitants Report 2023″, the report on world demography just published by the United Nations Population Fund (Unfpa). The Agency estimates that India’s population will be 1.4286 billion compared to China’s 1.4257 billion.
The report says eight countries will account for half of projected world population growth by 2050: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
The slowdown of new born in China
Although India and China account for more than a third of the estimated international population of 8.045 billion, population growth in both Asian giants has slowed, at a much faster pace in China than in India, the report noted. Last year, China’s population declined for the first time in six years, a historic change that should mark the beginning of a long period of decline in the number of citizens. There annual growth of the Indian population instead it has averaged 1.2% since 2011, compared to 1.7% in the previous ten years, according to data from the New Delhi government.
World growth rate at lowest since 1950
As specified in the UN report, the population of India is an estimate, as there have been no censuses in the country since 2011. Furthermore, the UN has specified that the data on China do not take into account Hong Kong’s two special administrations Kong and Macau and not even the population of Taiwan, which China considers its own province yet to be reunified. The report confirms that as of November 2022, the world‘s population has exceeded 8 billion people. However, the population growth rate is not as rapid as it used to be and is at its lowest since 1950.
