When will DR Congo overtake Egypt in population?

This is a race between two growing countries rather than a rise against a decline. Egypt keeps adding people at 2.7 births per woman, but DR Congo, at 6.0, adds them much faster from a base that is already almost as large. Egypt is about 8.1 million ahead in 2024; by 2050 the projection has DR Congo at 216 million against Egypt's 161 million.

DR Congo is projected to overtake Egypt in total population around 2029. At the crossover, both countries sit at roughly 125 million people. Today Egypt is still larger, but the trend lines are converging and the order is set to flip within a generation.

The reason is a tale of two trajectories. DR Congo is on course to more than double over the century, moving from about 108 million in 2024 toward 429 million by 2100. Egypt, by contrast, is set to grow strongly, going from roughly 116 million to 202 million over the same period. Differences in fertility and age structure (DR Congo's median age near 16 versus Egypt's near 24 today) explain much of the divergence.

Crossovers like this one are how the global population ranking is quietly rewritten. As faster-growing populations climb the table and slower-growing or shrinking ones slip down, the list of the world's largest countries in 2100 will look markedly different from today's. The 2029 crossing is one of the clearer signals of that shift.

As with all long-range projections, the exact year carries uncertainty. Under the UN's high and low fertility scenarios the crossover could arrive earlier or later, and the figures here follow the medium variant. Still, the direction of travel, DR Congo rising relative to Egypt, is robust across the plausible range of outcomes.