In 2023, Brazil ranked first by total population among the 24 territories presented in the ranking. Brazil's total population amounted to 211.14 million people, while Mexico and Colombia, the second and third territories, had records amounting to 129.74 million people and 52.32 million people, respectively.

The average for 2021 based on 12 countries was 25 people per square km. The highest value was in Ecuador: 72 people per square km and the lowest value was in Guyana: 4 people per square km. The indicator is available from 1961 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2023, Brazil ranked first by total population among the 21 countries presented in the ranking. Brazil's total population amounted to ************** people, while Mexico and Colombia, the second and third countries, had records amounting to ************** people and ************* people, respectively.

As of 2025, Barbados was the most densely populated country in Latin America and the Caribbean, with approximately 657.16 people per square kilometer. In that same year, Argentina's population density was estimated at approximately 16.75 people per square kilometer.

The average for 2024 based on 12 countries was 50.48 percent. The highest value was in Uruguay: 51.5 percent and the lowest value was in Paraguay: 49.86 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The average for 2024 based on 12 countries was 75.73 percent. The highest value was in Uruguay: 95.85 percent and the lowest value was in Guyana: 27.32 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This dataset provides values for POPULATION reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

In 2025, approximately 23 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the sixth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.75 million inhabitants. Brazil's cities Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 11.45 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.21 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller, but well known cities such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 88 percent of inhabitants living in cities. Mexico City Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks sevenths in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2023, the city registered a crime incidence of 52,723 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 24 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

Based on land area, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers. Argentina follows with almost 2.8 million square kilometers. Cuba, whose surface area extends over almost 111,000 square kilometers, is the Caribbean country with the largest territory.

Brazil: a country with a lot to offer

Brazil's borders reach nearly half of the South American subcontinent, making it the fifth-largest country in the world and the third-largest country in the Western Hemisphere. Along with its landmass, Brazil also boasts the largest population and economy in the region. Although Brasília is the capital, the most significant portion of the country's population is concentrated along its coastline in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

South America: a region of extreme geographic variation

With the Andes mountain range in the West, the Amazon Rainforest in the East, the Equator in the North, and Cape Horn as the Southern-most continental tip, South America has some of the most diverse climatic and ecological terrains in the world. At its core, its biodiversity can largely be attributed to the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon river, the world's largest river. However, with this incredible wealth of ecology also comes great responsibility. In the past decade, roughly 80,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon were destroyed. And, as of late 2019, there were at least 1,000 threatened species in Brazil alone.

In 2022, Haiti ranked first by population density among the 21 countries presented in the ranking. Haiti's population density amounted to ****** people, while El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, the second and third countries, had records amounting to ****** people and ****** people, respectively.

The statistic shows the largest countries in South America, based on land area. Brazil is the largest country by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers, followed by Argentina, with almost 2.8 million square kilometers.

South America has a complex demographic history shaped by multiple migration and admixture events in pre- and post-colonial times. Settled over 14,000 years ago by Native Americans, South America has experienced migrations of European and African individuals, similar to other regions in the Americas. However, the timing and magnitude of these events resulted in markedly different patterns of admixture throughout Latin America. We use genome-wide SNP data for 437 admixed individuals from 5 countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina) to explore the population structure and demographic history of South American Latinos. We combined these data with population reference panels from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas to perform global ancestry analysis and infer the subcontinental origin of the European and Native American ancestry components of the admixed individuals. By applying ancestry-specific PCA analyses we find that most of the European ancestry in South American Latinos is from the Iberian Peninsula; however, many individuals trace their ancestry back to Italy, especially within Argentina. We find a strong gradient in the Native American ancestry component of South American Latinos associated with country of origin and the geography of local indigenous populations. For example, Native American genomic segments in Peruvians show greater affinities with Andean indigenous peoples like Quechua and Aymara, whereas Native American haplotypes from Colombians tend to cluster with Amazonian and coastal tribes from northern South America. Using ancestry tract length analysis we modeled post-colonial South American migration history as the youngest in Latin America during European colonization (9–14 generations ago), with an additional strong pulse of European migration occurring between 3 and 9 generations ago. These genetic footprints can impact our understanding of population-level differences in biomedical traits and, thus, inform future medical genetic studies in the region.

The average for 2024 based on 20 countries was 50.68 percent. The highest value was in Puerto Rico: 52.92 percent and the lowest value was in Honduras: 49.66 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

LAC is the most water-rich region in the world by most metrics; however, water resource distribution throughout the region does not correspond demand. To understand water risk throughout the region, this dataset provides population and land area estimates for factors related to water risk, allowing users to explore vulnerability throughout the region to multiple dimensions of water risk. This dataset contains estimates of populations living in areas of water stress and risk in 27 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at the municipal level. The dataset contains categories of 18 factors related to water risk and 39 indices of water risk and population estimates within each with aggregations possible at the basin, state, country, and regional level. The population data used to generate this dataset were obtained from the WorldPop project 2020 UN-adjusted population projections, while estimates of water stress and risk come from WRI’s Aqueduct 3.0 Water Risk Framework. Municipal administrative boundaries are from the Database of Global Administrative Areas (GADM). For more information on the methodology users are invited to read IADB Technical Note IDB-TN-2411: “Scarcity in the Land of Plenty”, and WRIs “Aqueduct 3.0: Updated Decision-relevant Global Water Risk Indicators”.

The South American nation with the highest prison population rate in 2024 was Uruguay, with 449 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Brazil, with 389 prisoners. The country in South America with the lowest prison population rate was Ecuador, with 179 per 100,000 persons.

As of February 2025, more than ** percent of the population of Uruguay was on social media. On the other hand, approximately ** percent of Haitians used social networking platforms. Among the largest Latin American markets, Brazil had the lowest social media penetration rate at **** percent, just below Colombia and Argentina. Online networking among Chilean young adults intensifies Young adults are the primary audience of social media in Chile. Nearly half of all Facebook users in the South American country were between 18 and 34 years old. The same age group accounted for almost ** percent of Chilean users of LinkedIn. This generation has also been devoting more of its time to this type of online activity. Obstacles for the expansion of social media in Brazil A handful of issues still set part of Latin America's online population apart from social networks. Despite having the biggest social media audiences in Latin America, countries like Brazil and Mexico still struggled to provide internet access to their populations, thus hindering social media penetration rates.

This study describes the genetic diversity and population structure of 194 native maize populations from 23 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The germplasm, representing 131 distinct landraces, was genetically characterized as population bulks using 28 SSR markers. Three main groups of maize germplasm were identified. The first, the Mexico and Southern Andes group, highlights the Pre-Columbian and modern exchange of germplasm between North and South America. The second group, Mesoamerica lowland, supports the hypothesis that two separate human migration events could have contributed to Caribbean maize germplasm. The third, the Andean group, displayed early introduction of maize into the Andes, with little mixing since then, other than a regional interchange zone active in the past. Events and activities in the pre- and post-Columbian Americas including the development and expansion of pre-Columbian cultures and the arrival of Europeans to the Americas are discussed in relation to the history of maize migration from its point of domestication in Mesoamerica to South America and the Caribbean through sea and land routes.

The current US Census Bureau world population estimate in June 2019 shows that the current global population is 7,577,130,400 people on earth, which far exceeds the world population of 7.2 billion from 2015. Our own estimate based on UN data shows the world's population surpassing 7.7 billion.

China is the most populous country in the world with a population exceeding 1.4 billion. It is one of just two countries with a population of more than 1 billion, with India being the second. As of 2018, India has a population of over 1.355 billion people, and its population growth is expected to continue through at least 2050. By the year 2030, the country of India is expected to become the most populous country in the world. This is because India’s population will grow, while China is projected to see a loss in population.

The next 11 countries that are the most populous in the world each have populations exceeding 100 million. These include the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. Of these nations, all are expected to continue to grow except Russia and Japan, which will see their populations drop by 2030 before falling again significantly by 2050.

Many other nations have populations of at least one million, while there are also countries that have just thousands. The smallest population in the world can be found in Vatican City, where only 801 people reside.

In 2018, the world’s population growth rate was 1.12%. Every five years since the 1970s, the population growth rate has continued to fall. The world’s population is expected to continue to grow larger but at a much slower pace. By 2030, the population will exceed 8 billion. In 2040, this number will grow to more than 9 billion. In 2055, the number will rise to over 10 billion, and another billion people won’t be added until near the end of the century. The current annual population growth estimates from the United Nations are in the millions - estimating that over 80 million new lives are added each year.

This population growth will be significantly impacted by nine specific countries which are situated to contribute to the population growth more quickly than other nations. These nations include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America. Particularly of interest, India is on track to overtake China's position as the most populous country by the year 2030. Additionally, multiple nations within Africa are expected to double their populations before fertility rates begin to slow entirely.

Global life expectancy has also improved in recent years, increasing the overall population life expectancy at birth to just over 70 years of age. The projected global life expectancy is only expected to continue to improve - reaching nearly 77 years of age by the year 2050. Significant factors impacting the data on life expectancy include the projections of the ability to reduce AIDS/HIV impact, as well as reducing the rates of infectious and non-communicable diseases.

Population aging has a massive impact on the ability of the population to maintain what is called a support ratio. One key finding from 2017 is that the majority of the world is going to face considerable growth in the 60 plus age bracket. This will put enormous strain on the younger age groups as the elderly population is becoming so vast without the number of births to maintain a healthy support ratio.

Although the number given above seems very precise, it is important to remember that it is just an estimate. It simply isn't possible to be sure exactly how many people there are on the earth at any one time, and there are conflicting estimates of the global population in 2016.

Some, including the UN, believe that a population of 7 billion was reached in October 2011. Others, including the US Census Bureau and World Bank, believe that the total population of the world reached 7 billion in 2012, around March or April.

Among selected Latin American countries in 2021, Guatemala had the highest share of population that identify themselves as indigenous with over 43.5 percent. Bolivia followed with 41 percent of the total inhabitants. Colombia and Ecuador ranked as the Latin American countries with the highest share of indigenous people living in poverty.

AMBA = Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.NWE = Northwest.NEA = Northeast.South America = Origin from other South American Countries.*P value for Kruskal-Wallis equality of populations rank test evaluating the significance of the difference in mean Indigenous American/European ancestry between the 0 to 4 origin of grandparent categories for each region.