About the data
Every live number on this site is a simulation: we take the most recent published baselines and project them forward in real time using crude birth and death rates. Nothing here is a real-time headcount, because no such thing exists anywhere.
Baselines are assembled from UN World Population Prospects (national totals, vital rates), the World Bank (development indicators such as literacy), WHO surveys (tobacco use), WorldPop (gridded population estimates) and the Humanitarian Data Exchange (displacement and crisis datasets). Sudan's 18-state table additionally draws on Central Bureau of Statistics projections.
Countries we don't track closely carry regional-average estimates for some indicators and are flagged as such on their profile pages. Sudan's figures carry extra uncertainty because of large-scale displacement since 2023 and because the last full census dates to 2008.
Frequently asked questions
Are the live counters real-time counts?
No — no real-time census exists anywhere. The counters are deterministic projections: the most recent published baseline population is grown forward every second using crude birth and death rates, the same method behind every "world population clock".
Where does the data come from?
Baselines combine UN World Population Prospects (totals and vital rates), the World Bank (literacy and development indicators), WHO surveys (tobacco use), WorldPop (gridded population estimates) and the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Sudan's 18-state table also uses Central Bureau of Statistics projections.
Why are some figures marked as estimates?
Countries we don't track closely carry regional-average values for behavioural indicators such as smoking, and regional breakdowns outside Sudan use real region names with modelled population allocations. Every such figure is flagged "estimated" on the page and in the API.
Can I use this data in my own project?
Yes — every page has a matching JSON endpoint (for example /api/country/eg) that requires no API key. Please cite this site and the underlying sources listed above.
Licences
The world map is by Al MacDonald, edited by Fritz Lekschas, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Trending topics on country pages are simulated placeholders until a live trends API is connected.