What total population counts
Total population is the World Bank's estimate of the number of residents of each economy, taken at mid-year, from the World Development Indicators (SP.POP.TOTL). The series runs from 1960. Values are official estimates republished unmodified; nothing is interpolated or modelled here.
An estimate is not a census: it is built from national censuses, registers and surveys taken at different times and adjusted to a common mid-year reference, and it is revised as new evidence arrives. This page ranks the economies covered on this site by the latest year available; economies do not all share the same last year, so compare the year column as well as the value. Click a country in the chart legend or the list to show or hide it.
Population is a stock, not a flow: the change column is the difference between the two most recent annual values, so a country whose figures stop earlier shows the change for its own last pair of years. Every row carries the year of its value, so read the year column alongside the number. For the scale-free view of the same story, the growth page shows the annual rate of change; large totals change by large numbers even when the rate itself is small.