When will Nigeria overtake Indonesia in population?

Indonesia is about 52.1 million ahead today, a wide margin, but its fertility has settled at the replacement level, 2.1 births per woman, and the UN projects its population to peak around 2059. Nigeria averages 4.4 births per woman with a median age of 18, so its growth compounds for decades. The projection has the two level in the early 2040s, and by 2100 Nigeria at 477 million against Indonesia's 296 million.

Nigeria is projected to overtake Indonesia in total population around 2041. At the crossover, both countries sit at roughly 314 million people. Today Indonesia 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. Nigeria is on course to more than double over the century, moving from about 230 million in 2024 toward 477 million by 2100. Indonesia, by contrast, is expected to edge higher before levelling off, going from roughly 282 million to 296 million over the same period. Differences in fertility and age structure (Nigeria's median age near 18 versus Indonesia's near 30 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 2041 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, Nigeria rising relative to Indonesia, is robust across the plausible range of outcomes.