India ranks above China at the latest population endpoint

The supplied news peg concerns an anti-immigrant campaign in New Zealand. The World Bank indicators offered here do not measure attitudes, campaign support, migration, or the effects of immigration. They provide a narrower comparison: total population and annual population growth for India, China, the United States and Nigeria. Reading the first and latest observations side by side separates what these data establish from claims they cannot test.

The ordering reverses

At the 1960 starting point, China’s total population was larger than India’s. At the 2025 endpoint, India’s was larger than China’s. Both latest totals are also above their starting totals: India rose from 436 million to 1.46 billion, while China rose from 667 million to 1.41 billion. This establishes a reversal in their ordering and substantial growth in each country across the endpoints. It does not, on its own, identify the date of the reversal or describe the route taken between those observations.

At the latest endpoint, India ranks above China; at the first, China ranked above India.

The other totals widen the comparison. The United States begins and ends below both India and China, rising from 181 million in 1960 to 342 million in 2025. Nigeria also begins and ends below the two Asian countries, but its total rises from 45.1 million to 238 million. Among these four countries, the latest totals therefore place India first, China second, the United States third and Nigeria fourth. Those ranks describe population size at the latest endpoint only.

Growth rates are a separate measure

The growth-rate endpoints add a separate comparison. In 2025, Nigeria has the highest annual population growth rate of the four, followed by India and the United States; China’s rate is negative. Against the first supplied growth observations in 1961, the latest rates are lower for India and the United States. Nigeria’s first and latest supplied rates are both 2.06 percent. China’s rate is negative at both endpoints, with its 2025 value closer to zero than its 1961 value. These indicators do not isolate births, deaths or migration. They check population size and annual change, not immigration’s consequences or public opinion.