Mali Population

Mali has very high fertility and a very young population, placing it among the world's fastest-growing countries. Located in the Sahel, it faces overlapping pressures of conflict, drought and weak services as its numbers swell. The gap between rapid population growth and fragile state capacity is at the heart of its challenges.

Mali is home to about 25.6 million people in 2026, the 58th largest population of any country. A country of Western Africa, its trajectory to 2100 is governed by how births, deaths and migration play out. It packs in roughly 21 people per square kilometre.

The defining marker in Mali's future is its peak, expected around 2100 at about 79.2 million. After that the population eases back toward 79.2 million by 2100, having passed through 45.7 million at mid-century. The 50 million threshold is reached around 2055.

The median age is set to climb from about 16 today to roughly 33 by 2100, while life expectancy, near 61 years, keeps rising. For now it remains one of the world's youngest populations, with a large generation about to reach working age. That ageing slowly changes everything from the size of the workforce to the cost of care and pensions.

Fertility is high, around 5.51 births per woman, the engine of rapid, sustained growth. Emigration adds a further drag, as departures outnumber arrivals year to year.

Read these numbers as the midpoint of a range. Under the UN's high and low fertility paths Mali's 2100 population could land well above or below the figures here; the medium variant is simply the central case.