Babies on Map births by country, 0 CE – 2026

Asia · Southern Asia

How many babies are born in India?

23 million babies born in India in 2026 — 17.35% of all births worldwide, and the largest of any country. UN projection

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 India through history

10M 1 CE1000150018002026
Estimated annual births in India, 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 India'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 ~3M ~75M 40.5 Modelled estimate
1000 ~4.5M ~110M 40.3 Modelled estimate
1500 ~5.3M ~130M 40.3 Modelled estimate
1800 ~8.32M ~201M 41.5 Historical reconstruction
1900 ~13M ~281M 46.3 Historical reconstruction
1950 15.3M 346M 44.1 UN estimate
2000 29.1M 1.06B 27.5 UN estimate
2024 23.2M 1.45B 16.0 UN projection
2026 23M 1.48B 15.6 UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in India are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 2001, at about 29.3M. That is roughly 7.6 times the estimated ~3.04M births a year in 1 CE.

At 1.93 children per woman, fertility in India is below the level of about 2.1 that would hold a population steady over the long run without migration.

See India 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.