The most populous nation in Africa, Nigeria, with 191 million people today, will easily pass the United States to become the world’s third most populous nation by mid-century, says the UN Population Division in a biennial global population forecast. In a much shorter time span—just seven years—India will become the most populous nation on Earth, displacing China, which is expected to stabilize at slightly more than its current total of 1.41 billion people.
In 2030, according to the new edition of the UN’s World Population Prospects, India will be home to 1.51 billion people compared with its current 1.34 billion, while China’s population will have increased modestly, to 1.44 billion. Nigeria, the fastest-growing of the world’s 10 most populous nations, will see its population more than double, to 411 million, by 2050. During the same period, the United States should grow to 390 million people from its current total of 324 million.
“Today, the world’s population continues to grow, albeit more slowly than in the recent past,” says the UN report. Global population was growing at 1.24 percent a year a decade ago; now the annual growth rate is 1.1 percent, which adds roughly 83 million people to the world each year. While birth rates are slowing, life expectancy is lengthening. “The world’s population is projected to increase by slightly more than 1 billion people over the next 13 years, reaching 8.6 billion in 2030, and to increase further to 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.”
Through mid-century, half of the global population growth is expected to occur in nine countries: India, Nigeria, Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Uganda, and Indonesia, in order of projected growth. “The concentration of global population growth in the poorest countries presents a considerable challenge to governments” to reduce hunger and poverty, improve health and education, and reduce inequality, says the Population Division.