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Where babies are born today
About 132 million babies are born on Earth each year, roughly 4.2 every second. Half of them are born in just 9 countries. Where today’s babies are born also shows where the world’s population is moving.
Half of all births in 9 countries
India is far ahead of the rest: 18% of all births, about 1 in 6 of the world’s babies. Then come China, Nigeria and Pakistan. The table shows the 15 countries with the most births, with each country’s share of births next to its share of the world’s population.
| # | Country | Births a year | Share of world births | Share of world population | Children per woman |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 23,187,405 | 18% | 18% | 1.96 |
| 2 | China | 9,538,761 | 7.2% | 17% | 1.01 |
| 3 | Nigeria | 7,560,454 | 5.7% | 2.9% | 4.38 |
| 4 | Pakistan | 6,887,790 | 5.2% | 3.1% | 3.55 |
| 5 | Indonesia | 4,468,337 | 3.4% | 3.5% | 2.12 |
| 6 | DR Congo | 4,467,760 | 3.4% | 1.4% | 5.98 |
| 7 | Ethiopia | 4,155,789 | 3.1% | 1.7% | 3.91 |
| 8 | USA | 3,604,040 | 2.7% | 4.2% | 1.63 |
| 9 | Bangladesh | 3,469,165 | 2.6% | 2.1% | 2.14 |
| 10 | Brazil | 2,572,179 | 1.9% | 2.6% | 1.61 |
| 11 | Egypt | 2,437,398 | 1.8% | 1.4% | 2.74 |
| 12 | Tanzania | 2,385,962 | 1.8% | 0.9% | 4.54 |
| 13 | Mexico | 2,023,635 | 1.5% | 1.6% | 1.89 |
| 14 | Philippines | 1,841,219 | 1.4% | 1.4% | 1.89 |
| 15 | Uganda | 1,722,320 | 1.3% | 0.6% | 4.17 |
Where a country’s share of births is larger than its share of people, its population is younger than average or families there are larger, usually both. Nigeria has 2.9% of the world’s people and 5.7% of its births. USA is the other way round: 4.2% of the people and 2.7% of the births.
Together, the 15 countries in the table account for 61% of all births. At the other end of the list are small countries and islands. 22 countries have fewer than 10,000 births a year each, and together they make up 0.1% of the world’s babies.
Continents: births against population
- Share of world population
- Share of world births
Africa is home to 19% of the world’s people, and 35% of all babies are born there. Europe has 9.1% of the people and 4.6% of the births. Asia, where most people live, has a smaller share of births (50%) than of population (59%).
Today’s babies are tomorrow’s adults. When a region’s share of births is larger than its share of people, its share of the world’s population grows, as long as the pattern holds. By this measure, the world’s population is shifting towards Africa.
Child deaths change this picture only a little. In Africa 6.7 in 100 children die before age five, against 3.7 worldwide, but most of the babies born there grow up.
Children per woman and the level of 2.1
The total fertility rate is the number of children a woman would have if she lived through her childbearing years with this year’s birth rates at each age. Like life expectancy, it is a snapshot of the present, not a forecast.
About 2.1 children per woman is called the replacement level. Two children replace their two parents. The extra tenth covers the fact that slightly more boys than girls are born and that some children die before they can have children of their own. Where many children die young, the replacement level is higher than 2.1.
In 97 of the 186 countries the rate is below 2.1. They are home to 66% of the world’s people. The other 89 countries have 34% of the people and 55% of the births.
| Children per woman | Countries | Share of world population | Share of world births |
|---|---|---|---|
| under 1.5 | 57 | 30% | 14% |
| 1.5 to 2.1 | 40 | 36% | 32% |
| 2.1 to 3.0 | 37 | 13% | 14% |
| 3.0 to 4.0 | 27 | 9.1% | 16% |
| 4.0 or more | 25 | 12% | 25% |
The highest rates are here: Chad (6.03), Somalia (6.01), DR Congo (5.98), and CAR (5.95). The lowest: Macao (0.58), South Korea (0.75), Hong Kong (0.84), and Puerto Rico (0.92).
So most people live in countries where the rate is below 2.1, while most babies are born in countries where it is above. This is where the gap between shares of people and shares of births in the tables above comes from.
Below 2.1, yet many births
A country can be below the replacement level and still have many births. India has 1.96 children per woman, below 2.1. Yet more babies are born there than anywhere else, 23,187,405 a year: it has the largest population in the world, and its births per 1,000 people (15.8) are close to the world average (16.2).
A low fertility rate shows in the number of births only gradually. When it stays below 2.1, each new generation of parents is smaller than the one before, so births fall step by step, over decades. Demographers call this delay population momentum.
China is the clearest example of very low fertility in a large country. The rate there is 1.01, about half the replacement level, with 6.8 births per 1,000 people. China has 17% of the world’s people but 7.2% of its births.
What this picture leaves out
These are national figures for one year. They do not show differences inside countries, between regions or between cities and villages, and they say nothing about how fast the rates are changing.
Births in our data are calculated from each country’s population and birth rate. Where birth registration is complete, the World Bank uses registered births, so for a few countries the figure differs from the UN estimate.
A few places are missing: Taiwan, Réunion, Mayotte, Western Sahara and Guadeloupe. Together they account for less than 0.2% of the world’s births.
In 1in8B your country is drawn by exactly these shares of births. The chance for each of the 186 countries is on the odds-by-country page.
Sources
All figures are calculated from the data the game uses: the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (release of October 8, 2026) and the sources below. Values that are estimates rather than published statistics are left out of every “highest” and “lowest”.
- Births a year: population times the crude birth rate, WDI (SP.DYN.CBRT.IN), 2024.
- Population: WDI (SP.POP.TOTL), 2025.
- Total fertility rate, children per woman: UN World Population Prospects 2024, via WDI (SP.DYN.TFRT.IN), 2024.
- Under-five mortality: UN IGME, via WDI (SH.DYN.MORT), 2024.
- Continents follow the UN geographic regions; Turkey, the Caucasus and the Middle East are counted in Asia.
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