When will world population peak?

Global population is projected to flatten out at roughly 10.29 billion people and then begin a slow decline for the first time in modern history. The turn is not a date so much as a plateau: the series stays within 0.1% of its maximum from 2080 to 2088, and the single highest year, 2084, sits only about half a million people above its neighbours in a total above ten billion. Treat the 2080s as the period growth ends, not 2084 as the day it does. Either way it is one of the most consequential turning points in the UN's projections: the end of centuries of continuous growth.

The peak is the product of falling fertility almost everywhere. As more countries drop below the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman, the global total stops rising even as life expectancy continues to improve and the population grows older.

These projections come from the United Nations World Population Prospects 2024, the most widely used source for long-range demographic estimates. They are scenarios, not predictions. But the broad shape of the century ahead, a slowdown and eventual peak, is consistent across the main variants.