UN Projects India To Surpass China As The World’s Most Populous Country

The United Nations (UN) forecasts that India will overtake China’s long-held status as the world’s most populous country by the end of April 2023, reaching 1,425,775,850.

The projection is based on the latest United Nations estimates and projections of the global population. 

UN officials have also claimed it is impossible to determine the exact date for the shift due to the “uncertainty of the data” from China and India.

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Based on the data available in February, the United States was reported to have the world’s third-largest population, with an estimated number of 340 million people.

The UN says that China’s fertility rate has fallen since 2022, becoming one of the world’s lowest, with an average of 1.2 births per woman.

The total population in China reached its peak of 1.426 billion last year and began to fall, while the population in India is expected to grow continuously for several decades.

China has also reported one of its worst economic growth numbers in nearly half a century in 2022.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “A country’s demographic dividend depends not only on the total number, but also on the quality; not only on the population but also on the talent”.

Liu Zhenmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said: “The relationship between population growth and sustainable development is complex and multidimensional”.

“Rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combating hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more difficult,” Mr Liu said.

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