Ukraine Population

Ukraine is experiencing one of the steepest population declines anywhere, the result of low fertility compounded by war. The full-scale invasion in 2022 triggered the largest refugee movement in Europe since the Second World War, with millions fleeing abroad, many of them women and children. Combined with an already ageing structure, the war has accelerated a contraction that will outlast the fighting.

Ukraine is the world's 39th most populous country, home to about 39.7 million people in 2026. Set in Eastern Europe, its demographic path this century turns on the balance of births, deaths and migration. It packs in roughly 68 people per square kilometre.

The peak is already behind Ukraine: its population maxed out at about 52.4 million near 1993 and is contracting. By 2050 the UN expects around 32.2 million people, and by 2100 about 15.3 million. The 50 million threshold was crossed near 1981.

The median age is set to climb from about 42 today to roughly 58 by 2100, while life expectancy, near 75 years, keeps rising. An older population gradually reshapes the labour force, pension systems and healthcare demand.

Fertility is exceptionally low, near 0.99 births per woman, far beneath the roughly 2.1 needed to hold a population steady.

All of this is a projection, not a prediction. The further out it runs the wider the plausible range becomes, which is why Ukraine's charts show a low-to-high band around the central line.