Nepal Population

Nepal's fertility has fallen to around the replacement level, but its demographics are dominated by an extraordinary scale of labour migration. So many working-age men have left for jobs in the Gulf and India that remittances are among the largest contributors to the economy, and many villages are left with women, children and the elderly. That export of labour defines daily life as much as the birth rate does.

Nepal is the world's 52nd most populous country, home to about 29.6 million people in 2026. A country of Southern Asia, its trajectory to 2100 is governed by how births, deaths and migration play out. It packs in roughly 201 people per square kilometre.

The defining marker in Nepal's future is its peak, expected around 2067 at about 35.8 million. After that the population eases back toward 31.9 million by 2100, having passed through 34.6 million at mid-century.

The median age is set to climb from about 25 today to roughly 47 by 2100, even as life expectancy improves from about 71 years. That ageing slowly changes everything from the size of the workforce to the cost of care and pensions.

Fertility sits at about 1.96 births per woman, below the replacement level of roughly 2.1, so without migration the population would eventually shrink. Net outward migration also weighs on the total, with more people leaving than arriving.

The trajectory above is the UN's medium scenario. Wars, policy shifts, economic change and migration can all move the numbers, but the broad shape, growth followed by an eventual peak, is robust across the main variants.