- Sunday, May 12, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
India now is the world’s most populous nation, data released by the United Nations (UN) on Wednesday (19).
According to the world body’s estimates, the population of the South Asian nation is 1.4286 billion, more than its northern neighbour China which now has a population of 1.4257 billion.
This is the first time that India has topped the UN list of the most populous nations since it started collecting population data in 1950.
Area-wise, India is the world’s seventh-largest nation with an area of 3.287 million square kilometres, while China is the fourth largest with an area of 9.597 million square kilometres.
China’s population shrank last year for the first time in 62 years, when millions perished under disastrous agricultural policies of the country’s former leader Mao Zedong. It also faces a looming demographic decline, thanks to plunging birth rates and ageing workforce. While several regions of the country have come up with plans to boost birth rates, efforts to reverse the decline are yet to succeed.
India, however, has no recent official data on how many people it has since the 2021 census is yet to be carried out due to the coronavirus pandemic. The last time the country held a census was in 2011.