India

India overtook China as the most populous country in April 2023, according to the United Nations. Its projected population that year was 1,425,775,850 people.

This is a UN projection, not a headcount. Each country counts its people on its own schedule.

Context

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs produces World Population Prospects, which combines census results, surveys and birth and death registers into estimates, then projects forward using assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration. The crossover date in April 2023 was a modelled estimate, and the UN itself described the exact timing as approximate and open to revision.

China's population peaked at about 1.426 billion in 2022 and has begun to shrink, driven by a fertility rate of around 1.2 births per woman. India's fertility rate was about 2.0, just under the replacement level of roughly 2.1, so its population keeps growing, helped by a large working-age cohort, and is expected to rise for several more decades.

Data quality is a real caveat. China's last census was in November 2020, while India's census scheduled for 2021 was delayed by the pandemic, so India's figure rests more heavily on projections. Different agencies publish slightly different numbers, which is why the entry is labelled as an estimate.

The ranking could change over time: UN projections show India's population continuing to grow into the 2060s before it begins to decline, while China's is expected to keep falling.