Babies on Map births by country, 0 CE – 2026

Asia · Eastern Asia

How many babies are born in South Korea?

250 thousand babies born in South Korea in 2026 — 0.19% of all births worldwide, and the 81st 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 South Korea through history

10K100K1M 1 CE1000150018002026
Estimated annual births in South Korea, 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 South Korea'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 ~4.4K ~100K 43.3 Modelled estimate
1000 ~66K ~1.6M 41.5 Modelled estimate
1500 ~110K ~2.6M 41.7 Modelled estimate
1800 ~393K ~9.4M 41.8 Historical reconstruction
1900 ~405K ~9.69M 41.8 Historical reconstruction
1950 785K 19.8M 39.7 UN estimate
2000 600K 46.8M 12.8 UN estimate
2024 241K 51.7M 4.7 UN projection
2026 250K 51.6M 4.8 UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in South Korea are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 1960, at about 1.1M. That is roughly 57 times the estimated ~4.35K births a year in 1 CE.

At 0.76 children per woman, fertility in South Korea is below the level of about 2.1 that would hold a population steady over the long run without migration.

See South Korea 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.