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Top 10 most populous countries and regions in 2000

Daily Tens #92 · Tuesday, October 13, 2026 · Ranked by total population

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Heads up: the answers are published further down this page.

About this ranking

At the start of the 2000s, China and India were the only reporting economies in this list above one billion residents. Japan and Nigeria, by contrast, were separated by less than half a million people at the lower cutoff. The original values reveal both the scale of the leaders and how little can separate adjacent ranks.

The answers

2000 population for the archived answer set
Rank Answer 2000 population
1 China 1,262,645,000
2 India 1,057,922,733
3 United States 282,162,411
4 Indonesia 216,077,790
5 Brazil 174,018,282
6 Pakistan 154,879,127
7 Russia 146,596,869
8 Bangladesh 134,544,304
9 Japan 126,843,000
10 Nigeria 126,382,494

Values follow the dated source snapshot and the original answer order. Rounding is for display only; the ranking uses the stored values.

Population scale in 2000

Million residents · Linear scale starting at zero

  1. China 1,262.6
  2. India 1,057.9
  3. United States 282.2
  4. Indonesia 216.1
  5. Brazil 174.0
  6. Pakistan 154.9
  7. Russia 146.6
  8. Bangladesh 134.5
  9. Japan 126.8
  10. Nigeria 126.4

World Bank reporting economies. The Japan–Nigeria gap is small enough that rounded labels alone do not explain the order.

Data: World Bank — World Development Indicators. Chart by Daily Tens.

A billion-person comparison

China’s stored population is 1,262,645,000 and India’s is 1,057,922,733, a difference of about 204.7 million. India had about 3.75 times the United States figure of 282.2 million. Those ratios help explain why a linear chart gives the first two entries much longer bars. Equal-width rank cards are useful for gameplay, but they should not be mistaken for a quantitative comparison. Here, the bars represent populations and begin at zero, preserving the ratios in the underlying data.

The narrow Japan–Nigeria margin

Japan’s 126,843,000 residents exceed Nigeria’s 126,382,494 by only 460,506 in the preserved snapshot. Both round to about 127 million at a coarse level, so rounding before sorting could hide the difference. A revised estimate could also affect a close comparison more easily than a very large gap. The table retains the original figures and the game keeps its fixed order, making it possible to understand why the saved result may differ from a later revision of a live source.

Compare the 1980 and 2000 lists carefully

Between the two archive snapshots, Pakistan moves above Russia and Japan, and Nigeria appears in the first ten while Germany drops out. This is a comparison of levels under the World Bank reporting framework. It is not, on its own, a measurement of population growth rates. To calculate growth, subtract or divide a country’s own values across the two dates. Moving up a rank only establishes relative position against other reporting units, not the size or cause of that country’s change.

Historical labels and data coverage

These are World Bank reporting economies rather than a reconstruction of every sovereign boundary in 2000. Regional aggregates and income-group totals are excluded, and missing observations do not become zeroes. The source’s country coverage and definitions should be kept consistent when rebuilding the list. Using a modern estimate for one country or a different historical territorial definition for another would make the rows incomparable. The archived snapshot is a transparent reference point, not a claim that historical demographic estimates never change.

Sources & further reading

Explanation updated . The puzzle’s original data date is listed below.

Sources & methodology

Metric
Total population
Data through
2000; World Bank snapshot checked September 2026
Source
World Bank — World Development Indicators
Notes
Individual countries and regions with reported data; regional and income-group aggregates and missing values are excluded. Historical data use the World Bank reporting boundaries, not a reconstruction of the political map of that year. Ranks are frozen to the checked snapshot.

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