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By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African

Share of the world's population by continent, 1950–2100. Pick a year, or switch to people.

Africa's century
  1. 1. By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African
  2. 2. Nearly half the world's under-25s will be African by 2100
  3. 3. DR Congo is projected to outgrow the US by 2100
  4. 4. Kinshasa will soon be bigger than Paris and London combined
  5. 5. Two-thirds of the world's mobile money moves in Africa
  6. 6. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
  7. 7. Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024
  8. 8. DR Congo mines three-quarters of the world's cobalt
  9. 9. Nearly two in three people in Africa are still offline
  10. 10. Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste
  11. 11. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
  12. 12. DR Congo now has more children than Brazil
  13. 13. Nigeria's cities now hold more people than Japan's
  14. 14. Sudan now has the world's most people displaced at home
  15. 15. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
  16. 16. Six of the ten fastest-growing big cities are African
  17. 17. Africa now has more hungry people than Asia
  18. 18. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
  19. 19. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
+2.3 billion

Africa adds 2.3 billion people between 2024 and 2100. The rest of the world combined shrinks by about 280 million.

Asia peaks

Asia tops out near 5.3 billion around 2050, then falls to 4.6 billion. Its share drops from 59% to 45%.

22% → 6%

Europe held more than one in five people in 1950. By 2100 it will hold fewer than one in sixteen.

Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2024 (medium variant), 2024 revision
the numbers & method

Claim types Fact · Forecast

Northern America for 1975, 2024 and 2075 derived as world minus other regions (±1M)

Published 14 Sep 2026

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what connects to this

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