China vs India: Population

China

1.42 billion people

in 2023

India

1.44 billion people

in 2023

China rank

2nd

India rank

1st

Population over time

India currently reports 1.44 billion people against 1.42 billion people in China, a difference of 15.49 million people.

The two have swapped places 2 times across 241 shared years of data; in 1000 it was India ahead.

China ranks 2nd and India ranks 1st of 238 countries.

Indicator: Population
Unit: people
Source: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Our World in Data)
Coverage: 239 places, 51,002 data points, 1000–2023
Last refreshed: 07 August 2026

Population by country, available from 10,000 BCE to 2023, based on data and estimates from different sources.