Mexico now has more people than Japan
people, 2023
In 1950 it had 27.6M people against 86.4M in Japan. It overtook Japan in 2020.
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Population on 1 July, UN estimate, for two countries measured the same way.
Blue is the country of the headline, orange the one it is compared with; one scale. The ring marks where the lines crossed; the gap after it is shaded. The large numbers are the latest year both share.
- Mexico: Population thousand persons, 1 July
27,588 (1950) → 129,740 (2023)
- Japan: Population thousand persons, 1 July
86,443 (1950) → 124,371 (2023)
Well-known countries against every country of sufficient size. An overtaking counts if the country was well behind at the start, ahead in no more than a fifth of the years before it, and it lasts to the latest shared year (at least two or three years in a row). A short dip of up to two years does not end a lead and is named. At most three overtakings per well-known country, and each country in at most one card of a kind.
World Population Prospects 2024, estimates to 2023. Population changes with births, deaths and migration; the card does not separate them.
A question for this picture
What made the overtaking: many children in one country or few in the other?