About this chart race
China opened this race far ahead. In 1960 it counted 667 million people against India's 436 million, a gap of 231 million that took six decades to close.
In this series the crossover lands in 2021, when India reached 1.414 billion against China's 1.412 billion. By 2024 the gap had widened to India's 1.451 billion against 1.409 billion. Other estimates place the handover a couple of years later, because national censuses and modelling assumptions differ. The dates here are World Bank figures throughout.
Further down the ranking the movement is sharper than at the top. Nigeria started 1960 in fourteenth place with 45 million people and finished sixth with 233 million, passing Japan, Mexico, Russia and Bangladesh on the way. Russia is the only country here that ends below its own peak: 148.5 million in 1992 against 143.7 million in 2024.
This animated ranking shows how population changed across 22 series between 1960 and 2024. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2024, India leads with 1,450,935,791 people.
Included in this race
India, China, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russian Federation, Ethiopia, Mexico, Japan, Egypt Arab Rep., Philippines, Viet Nam, Iran Islamic Rep., Turkiye, Germany, Thailand, United Kingdom, France, Italy.
Source
Data from World Bank. Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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