How many babies are born in China each year?

An estimated 8.62 million babies are born in China in 2026, according to the UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium projection. That is about 23,600 a day and 6.51% of all births worldwide.

What is the birth rate in China?

China has an estimated 6.1 births per 1,000 people in 2026, and a total fertility rate of 1.03 children per woman.

Asia · Eastern Asia

How many babies are born in China?

8.62 million babies born in China in 2026 — 6.51% of all births worldwide, and the 2nd largest of any country. UN projection

23,600births per day
983per hour
16per minute
6.1births per 1,000 people
1.03children per woman
1.41 billionpopulation

Plus or minus about 6%. These years have not happened yet or have not been counted yet. They are the medium variant of the UN's projection, not a record of births that took place.

Births in China through history

Estimated annual births in China, 0 CE to 2026, on a logarithmic scale. The shaded band on the left marks the years where births are modelled rather than recorded. The marker sits on 2026.

Every figure refers to the area inside China's present-day borders. Before 1800 the state did not exist in its current form — see how borders are handled.
Year	Estimated births	Population	Per 1,000	Evidence
1 CE	~2.2M	~58M	38.8	Modelled estimate
1000	~1.6M	~37M	44.4	Modelled estimate
1500	~3.8M	~91M	41.9	Modelled estimate
1800	~12.7M	~330M	38.6	Historical reconstruction
1900	~15.3M	~396M	38.6	Historical reconstruction
1950	22.3M	544M	41.0	UN estimate
2000	17.5M	1.27B	13.8	UN estimate
2024	8.83M	1.42B	6.2	UN projection
2026	8.62M	1.41B	6.1	UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in China are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 1963, at about 33.5M. That is roughly 3.9 times the estimated ~2.24M births a year in 1 CE.

At 1.03 children per woman, fertility in China is below the level of about 2.1 that would hold a population steady over the long run without migration.

See China on the map

Where these numbers come from

2026 figures are the UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium variant. Earlier years come from the UN's estimates (1950 onward), Gapminder's reconstructions (1800–1949) and a model applied to HYDE population estimates (before 1800). The full chain is set out in the methodology, and every source is listed on the sources page.