Babies on Map births by country, 0 CE – 2026

Asia · Southern Asia

How many babies are born in Sri Lanka?

316 thousand babies born in Sri Lanka in 2026 — 0.24% of all births worldwide, and the 70th 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 Sri Lanka through history

100K 1 CE1000150018002026
Estimated annual births in Sri Lanka, 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 Sri Lanka'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 ~12K ~300K 41.6 Modelled estimate
1000 ~33K ~800K 41.0 Modelled estimate
1500 ~41K ~1000K 41.3 Modelled estimate
1800 ~69.6K ~1.75M 39.8 Historical reconstruction
1900 ~176K ~4.06M 43.2 Historical reconstruction
1950 281K 7.81M 35.9 UN estimate
2000 355K 19.3M 18.4 UN estimate
2024 320K 23.1M 13.9 UN projection
2026 316K 23.3M 13.6 UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in Sri Lanka are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 1979, at about 427K. That is roughly 25 times the estimated ~12.5K births a year in 1 CE.

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

See Sri Lanka 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.