Spell-binding animated charts track how quickly world’s most populated countries will grow or shrink by 2100 – with number of citizens living in China expected to HALVE by end of century

According to dramatic UN predictions, China’s population will more than halve by 2100.

Startling forecasts suggest the economic superpower will be home to 634 million people by the end of the century, compared to 1.42 billion today.

The unfolding population disaster in China has caused global panic, leaving much of the world dependent on China’s massive industrial output.

Birth rates have fallen to their lowest level ever, fueled by the decades-long one-child policy. Beijing’s efforts in recent years to encourage women to have more children have backfired.

MailOnline has today produced a mesmerising chart showing the UN’s projections for the population size of every country between now and 2100.

It not only shows China’s decline, but also how African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola are expected to quadruple in size.

Our fascinating time-lapse graph also shows how each country’s population has changed since 1950, including the exact moment when India overtook China to claim the title of the world’s most populous country (1.44b).

Together they are home to more than a third of the world’s population.

According to UN projections, India and China are likely to remain the leaders for the next 76 years, but China’s population will fall below 1 billion by the late 2060s.

This means that the Asian country will lose more people in about 35 years than the US.

By 2100, China is expected to have lost more than 55 percent – ​​nearly 790 million – of its current population, leaving the country at about 630 million.

Last year marked the second consecutive year of decline in China’s population, driven by historically low birth rates fueled by the decades-long one-child policy.

Although the limit was raised to two in 2015 and abolished completely in 2021, Beijing has not encouraged women to have more children.

Experts also blame rising childcare costs and low wages for the lack of a reversal of the trend, despite the extension of maternity leave, tax breaks for large families and stricter rules on “non-medical” abortions. Experts have previously warned that the move could endanger women’s lives.

President Xi Jinping’s eventual lifting of Covid measures was also partly blamed for the death rate rising to its highest level in 50 years.

India, on the other hand, will experience population growth until the early 2060s, peaking at about 1.7 billion, after which it will gradually decline (1.5 billion in 2100).

Within the next two decades, Pakistan will overtake the US and Indonesia to become the third most populous country in the world.

The population is expected to reach 385 million in 2053, compared to the US’s 383 million. By 2100, Pakistan’s population will reach 511 million.

The UK, currently ranked 21st with 67 million people, is expected to drop out of the top 25 by the late 2040s, replaced by countries such as Kenya, Afghanistan and Sudan.

However, the country’s population is still expected to reach 74 million by 2100, placing it 61st.

The US, meanwhile, will drop from third to sixth place, with a population of 421 million by the turn of the century.

Falling fertility rates are the cause of the “underpopulation crisis” that Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is deeply concerned about.

In 2017, he warned that the population was “moving rapidly toward collapse, but few seem to notice or care.” In 2021, he warned that civilization would “crumble” if people stopped having children.

Fertility rates in developed countries such as the UK and the US are expected to continue to decline, making these countries increasingly dependent on immigration to support their ageing populations.

Musk has claimed that Japan, where the population is shrinking, could “disappear altogether” if low birth rates continue to decline and that Italy “will have no inhabitants left” if current trends continue.

The ten countries with the highest percentage population growth are all in Sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these countries contribute almost 1 billion euros to population growth.

The world’s least populated countries, many of which are island nations, are expected to remain about the same.

The tiny Polynesian island of Niue had a population of fewer than 2,000 in 2023, the smallest of any country in the world.

The UN predicts that Niue’s population will grow to just under 2,400 by 2100.