When will Nigeria overtake United States in population?

Nigeria is projected to overtake United States in total population around 2057. At the crossover, both countries sit at roughly 386 million people. Today United States is still larger, but the trend lines are converging and the order is set to flip within a generation.

The reason is a tale of two trajectories. Nigeria is on course to more than double over the century, moving from about 230 million in 2024 toward 477 million by 2100. United States, by contrast, is projected to keep growing, going from roughly 344 million to 421 million over the same period. Differences in fertility and age structure (Nigeria's median age near 18 versus United States's near 38 today) explain much of the divergence.

Crossovers like this one are how the global population ranking is quietly rewritten. As faster-growing populations climb the table and slower-growing or shrinking ones slip down, the list of the world's largest countries in 2100 will look markedly different from today's. The 2057 crossing is one of the clearer signals of that shift.

As with all long-range projections, the exact year carries uncertainty. Under the UN's high and low fertility scenarios the crossover could arrive earlier or later, and the figures here follow the medium variant. Still, the direction of travel, Nigeria rising relative to United States, is robust across the plausible range of outcomes.