How many babies are born in Lesotho each year?

An estimated 55.3 thousand babies are born in Lesotho in 2026, according to the UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium projection. That is about 151 a day and 0.04% of all births worldwide.

What is the birth rate in Lesotho?

Lesotho has an estimated 23.1 births per 1,000 people in 2026, and a total fertility rate of 2.61 children per woman.

Africa · Southern Africa

How many babies are born in Lesotho?

55.3 thousand babies born in Lesotho in 2026 — 0.04% of all births worldwide, and the 130th largest of any country. UN projection

151births per day
6per hour
0per minute
23.1births per 1,000 people
2.61children per woman
2.39 millionpopulation

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 Lesotho through history

Estimated annual births in Lesotho, 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 Lesotho'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	~350	~8.4K	41.4	Modelled estimate
1000	~1.3K	~32K	41.4	Modelled estimate
1500	~2.6K	~62K	41.4	Modelled estimate
1800	~11.3K	~276K	40.8	Historical reconstruction
1900	~10.2K	~249K	40.8	Historical reconstruction
1950	25.3K	580K	43.6	UN estimate
2000	56.6K	2M	28.3	UN estimate
2024	55.5K	2.34M	23.8	UN projection
2026	55.3K	2.39M	23.1	UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in Lesotho are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 1987, at about 65.3K. That is roughly 159 times the estimated ~349 births a year in 1 CE.

At 2.61 children per woman, fertility in Lesotho is above the level of about 2.1 that would hold a population steady over the long run without migration.

See Lesotho 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.