Sri Lanka's population has shrunk three years in a row
Yearly change in Sri Lanka's mid-year population, thousands of people, 2016–2025.
- 1. The world has already passed peak child
- 2. Japan's median age is more than three times Niger's
- 3. South Korea now has a quarter of its 1971 births
- 4. China's population is projected to more than halve by 2100
- 5. Japan now has over 100,000 centenarians, up from 153
- 6. Japan has 9 million empty homes: one in seven
- 7. One in ten in Japan will be foreign by 2070
- 8. Japan's foreign residents have doubled since 2012, passing 4 million
- 9. Jakarta, not Tokyo, is the world's largest city
- 10. Two in three newly licensed UK doctors qualified abroad
- 11. Iran dropped from top refugee host to fifth in 2025
- 12. More Christians live in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else
- 13. Two in three people live where fertility is below replacement
- 14. Japan's births fell below half their 1899 level
- 15. Brazil now has more people over 65 than Germany
- 16. Egypt has more asylum seekers than Germany, Spain and Italy
- 17. 34 countries and territories are past their population peak
- 18. Chile's fertility rate fell below Italy's and Japan's
- 19. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
- 20. Thailand's births have fallen below its deaths
- 21. Women hold at least half the seats in seven parliaments
- 22. Child marriage in South Asia has nearly halved since 2005
- 23. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
- 24. Argentina's teen birth rate fell 60% in ten years
- 25. Chad rose from 15th to 6th among refugee hosts
- 26. Sri Lanka's population has shrunk three years in a row
- 27. Bangladesh's births per woman have fallen by two-thirds since 1970
- 28. Türkiye overtook France in hosting foreign students
Fewer people in Sri Lanka in 2025 than at the 2022 peak: 21.76 million, down from 22.18 million.
The fall in 2025 alone, the steepest of the three years of decline.
Growth as recently as 2021: a South Asian country turned from growing to shrinking within two years.
the numbers & method
| Yearly change (k) | |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 239 |
| 2017 | 244 |
| 2018 | 217 |
| 2019 | 133 |
| 2020 | 116 |
| 2021 | 237 |
| 2022 | 25 |
| 2023 | -144 |
| 2024 | -121 |
| 2025 | -160 |
Claim types Fact · Estimate
World Bank, World Development Indicators (last updated 8 Oct 2026), total population (SP.POP.TOTL) and population growth (SP.POP.GROW), Sri Lanka, read from the World Bank API. For Sri Lanka the series from 2013 is published in round thousands (national mid-year estimates); the drop between 2012 and 2013 in the series is a census rebase, so the chart starts after it. Mid-year population: 2015 20,970,000; 2021 22,156,000; 2022 22,181,000 (peak); 2023 22,037,000; 2024 21,916,000; 2025 21,756,000. Bars are year-on-year changes in thousands, derived by progrss: 2016 +239; 2017 +244; 2018 +217; 2019 +133; 2020 +116; 2021 +237; 2022 +25; 2023 −144; 2024 −121; 2025 −160. World Bank growth rates: 2023 −0.65%, 2024 −0.55%, 2025 −0.73%. 2025 is the latest estimate and can be revised. The plate shows the change and claims no single cause (births, deaths and migration all count). Licence: World Bank, CC BY 4.0.
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