The deck the draw uses

Birthplace is weighted by how many babies a country has in a year. A baby is likelier to be drawn in India or Nigeria than in Korea or Germany — not because those countries matter more, but because more children are born there. Every number here comes from public statistics, with the year and source traceable item by item.

Births in 2026: 132.5 million
Births per second: 4.2
Countries and territories: 237
Most often drawn: India

The five largest sources of births are India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, together 38.4% of all births worldwide.

Country	Births per year	Share of world	Life expectancy (M / F)	GDP per person (PPP)	Gini
IndiaIND	22,988,461	17.35%	70.5 / 73.6	11,748	24.0
ChinaCHN	8,625,232	6.51%	75.2 / 80.9	29,333	36.0
NigeriaNGA	7,711,752	5.82%	54.2 / 54.7	9,532	33.9
PakistanPAK	6,935,665	5.23%	65.3 / 70.2	6,573	33.5
Democratic Republic of the CongoCODestimated	4,634,979	3.50%	59.8 / 64.0	1,920	44.7
IndonesiaIDN	4,419,970	3.34%	69.0 / 73.3	17,660	34.4
EthiopiaETH	4,213,081	3.18%	64.1 / 70.7	3,622	31.1
United States of AmericaUSA	3,673,260	2.77%	76.8 / 81.8	90,027	41.8
BangladeshBGD	3,407,860	2.57%	73.0 / 76.3	10,154	30.9
BrazilBRA	2,492,914	1.88%	72.8 / 79.0	23,433	50.3
United Republic of TanzaniaTZA	2,459,538	1.86%	64.2 / 69.8	4,471	40.5
EgyptEGY	2,459,317	1.86%	69.5 / 73.8	20,204	28.5
MexicoMEX	1,989,217	1.50%	72.2 / 77.8	25,868	42.6
PhilippinesPHL	1,853,794	1.40%	66.9 / 72.8	12,577	39.3
UgandaUGA	1,746,979	1.32%	65.3 / 71.1	3,488	38.2
SudanSDNestimated	1,694,024	1.28%	63.3 / 69.6	2,192	34.2
KenyaKEN	1,558,303	1.18%	61.5 / 65.9	7,016	38.5
AfghanistanAFGestimated	1,520,756	1.15%	64.5 / 67.5	2,236	33.7
AngolaAGOestimated	1,461,075	1.10%	62.1 / 67.1	10,251	51.3
YemenYEMestimated	1,406,796	1.06%	67.2 / 71.4	3,164	36.7
MozambiqueMOZ	1,323,752	1.00%	60.3 / 66.5	1,698	49.6
Viet NamVNM	1,307,471	0.99%	69.9 / 79.2	18,088	36.1
Russian FederationRUS	1,213,374	0.92%	67.2 / 79.0	49,568	33.0
IraqIRQ	1,200,201	0.91%	70.4 / 74.0	14,267	29.8
South AfricaZAF	1,167,803	0.88%	62.6 / 69.6	15,906	54.1
NigerNER	1,157,021	0.87%	60.3 / 62.1	2,177	32.9
Iran (Islamic Republic of)IRN	1,101,751	0.83%	75.8 / 79.6	19,699	35.9
TürkiyeTUR	1,045,681	0.79%	74.5 / 79.8	45,288	43.7
MadagascarMDGestimated	1,033,723	0.78%	61.9 / 65.4	1,952	36.8
Côte d'IvoireCIVestimated	1,028,953	0.78%	60.0 / 64.1	8,209	35.3
MaliMLIestimated	1,005,407	0.76%	59.0 / 61.9	3,503	35.7
CameroonCMR	991,664	0.75%	61.5 / 65.9	5,788	42.2
ChadTCDestimated	909,765	0.69%	53.2 / 57.0	2,903	37.4
GhanaGHA	903,735	0.68%	63.1 / 67.9	8,610	43.5
UzbekistanUZB	894,379	0.67%	69.5 / 75.4	13,601	32.7
MyanmarMMR	881,077	0.66%	63.8 / 70.2	6,012	30.7
SomaliaSOMestimated	836,420	0.63%	56.3 / 61.4	1,643	38.4
AlgeriaDZA	832,197	0.63%	74.9 / 77.7	18,586	27.6
Burkina FasoBFA	747,913	0.56%	58.9 / 63.2	3,072	37.4
JapanJPN	745,943	0.56%	81.7 / 87.6	55,422	32.3
ZambiaZMB	721,060	0.54%	63.9 / 68.7	4,379	51.5
MalawiMWI	692,256	0.52%	64.1 / 70.6	1,899	38.5
GermanyDEU	689,997	0.52%	79.0 / 83.7	75,407	33.7
ColombiaCOL	684,798	0.52%	75.0 / 80.4	22,640	54.4
United KingdomGBR	678,001	0.51%	79.3 / 83.2	64,607	32.4
FranceFRA	633,972	0.48%	80.4 / 86.0	63,975	31.8
Syrian Arab RepublicSYRestimated	625,121	0.47%	69.8 / 74.4	4,905	26.4
MoroccoMAR	613,838	0.46%	73.2 / 77.6	11,112	39.5
Saudi ArabiaSAUestimated	567,889	0.43%	77.1 / 81.1	73,784	33.7
ThailandTHA	566,113	0.43%	72.1 / 80.8	26,250	33.3
SenegalSEN	554,508	0.42%	66.8 / 70.8	5,463	36.2
NepalNPL	542,047	0.41%	68.8 / 71.8	6,175	30.0
PeruPER	532,846	0.40%	75.4 / 80.0	18,816	40.1
ArgentinaARG	510,178	0.39%	74.8 / 79.8	32,587	42.4
ZimbabweZWE	505,305	0.38%	60.2 / 65.0	6,470	50.3
GuineaGINestimated	497,357	0.38%	59.5 / 61.9	4,935	29.6
BeninBEN	494,197	0.37%	59.3 / 62.2	4,817	34.4
BurundiBDI	471,624	0.36%	61.6 / 65.7	1,248	37.5
MalaysiaMYS	440,401	0.33%	74.2 / 79.3	41,498	40.7
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)VENestimated	439,529	0.33%	68.7 / 76.5	21,283	44.7
RwandaRWA	409,278	0.31%	65.5 / 69.9	4,164	39.4
KazakhstanKAZ	390,247	0.29%	70.1 / 78.4	44,293	29.2
GuatemalaGTM	380,396	0.29%	70.3 / 74.9	15,197	45.2
ItalyITA	379,621	0.29%	81.5 / 85.7	62,803	34.3
South SudanSSDestimated	365,962	0.28%	54.6 / 60.6	1,155	44.0
CanadaCAN	361,315	0.27%	80.4 / 84.7	66,746	31.5
CambodiaKHMestimated	352,442	0.27%	68.0 / 73.2	8,543	34.1
Dem. People's Republic of KoreaPRKestimated	328,497	0.25%	71.5 / 75.7	16,338	34.1
SpainESP	327,412	0.25%	80.9 / 86.2	59,868	33.4
Sri LankaLKA	316,459	0.24%	74.2 / 80.6	17,065	37.7
AustraliaAUS	303,345	0.23%	82.1 / 85.7	71,934	33.8
TogoTGOestimated	299,393	0.23%	62.5 / 62.9	4,079	37.9
PolandPOL	283,495	0.21%	74.9 / 82.3	54,262	28.5
EcuadorECU	267,031	0.20%	74.7 / 80.1	16,757	45.9
TajikistanTJKestimated	261,679	0.20%	69.6 / 74.0	5,923	36.1
Bolivia (Plurinational State of)BOLestimated	261,496	0.20%	66.1 / 71.1	12,873	40.9
Sierra LeoneSLE	261,328	0.20%	60.0 / 63.5	3,717	35.7
Papua New GuineaPNGestimated	257,492	0.19%	63.7 / 69.1	5,215	41.9
HaitiHTIestimated	256,749	0.19%	61.7 / 68.3	3,134	41.1
Central African RepublicCAFestimated	254,783	0.19%	55.3 / 59.3	1,314	43.0

Showing the first 80 rows of 237 countries and territories. Life expectancy is computed year by year from the life table, not set in advance.

Sources:UN World Population Prospects 2024 (births, population, life expectancy, infant and under-five mortality, fertility, sex ratio at birth, full life table), World Bank WDI (GDP per person, Gini, out-of-pocket health spending, agricultural employment, urbanisation, school enrolment, homicide, road deaths, smoking, maternal mortality, internet use). Missing indicators are filled with the regional median and marked “estimated”; definitions are inhow it is calculated.

All countries and territories

Sorted by name, 237 in total. Each page gives the odds of being born there, 16 indicators, and that country’s rank among 237.

Questions about the deck

Which countries have the most births?

In 2026 the most births are in India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and together they account for 38.4% of the world’s newborns. The draw is weighted by births, so these five come up most often.

Why weight the birthplace by births?

Because the deck is people, not flags. About 132.5 million babies are born in 2026, split across 237 countries and territories, and each gets a different share: India alone has roughly 23 million a year, dozens of times most countries. Splitting evenly by country would inflate the odds of drawing a small country by the same factor.

How is life expectancy calculated here?

It is not a target age set in advance. It is summed year by year from the UN’s full life table, which gives qx — the probability of dying at each single age from 0 to 110, by sex. Multiplying those survival probabilities gives the chance of reaching each age; summing them gives life expectancy. The table ends in 2023, and later years are back-solved from the UN’s own life-expectancy projections.