Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population

India

Please update, India has a higher population than China

https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2023_policy-brief-153.pdf 180.150.36.216 (talk) 04:32, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree it needs an update as it doesn't match India's wiki page of 1,428 billion and China at number 2 with it's 1,409 billion. CHCBOY (talk) 19:36, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

See List of countries by population (United Nations), which is a list based purely on estimates from the United Nations.-- Maxeto0910 (talk) 17:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, this article is horribly outdated and inaccurate. The cartogram is from 2018 and a lot has happened since then. India, for example, surpassed China back in mid-2023. Titus III (talk) 03:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Sovereign Order of Malta

Would there be any problem with adding the Knights of Malta to the table? Their actual physical sovereign territory consists of only a handful of offices but apparently they have a number of Knights who hold only citizenship of the Order and they do issue passports recognized for world travel. The official number of Knights is 13,500. Pascalulu88 (talk) 13:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Usually just the entries in the ISO 3166-1 and partially recognized states are in the list. Wizmut (talk) 14:35, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, I checked and, as of 2017, the code assigned to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is XOM. So does that mean I can add them to the table? Their passports are recognized by 113 countries. Pascalulu88 (talk) 19:34, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

That code isn't from the ISO and it's not a state, so I would say not. Wizmut (talk) 21:04, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

It's a sovereignty but not a state? It issues passports recognized by states but it's not itself a state? I think that, as a unique sovereign entity, it is more interesting to include it in the list than to exclude it. Uniqueness is not a disparagement. Pascalulu88 (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Exclusion is not a disparagement. Lists are not "list of interesting things", they have specific criteria. See WP:LISTCRITERIA. Wizmut (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

No, but making a list of sovereign entities more interesting may be seen as a good thing by curious users of our encyclopedia. If we were compiling the list before 1929, the Vatican would have been in an analogous position to the Knights of Malta. Pascalulu88 (talk) 23:33, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2024

"Update population figure for Central African Republic to 6'470'307 as per CAR national statistics institute https://www.icasees.org/index.php/actualites/population-de-la-republique-centrafricaine-en-2021-et-2024" 80.28.228.163 (talk) 13:16, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

 Note:Should be implemented but the table is too large for me to edit. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 00:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done Wizmut (talk) 01:29, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Central African Republic seems to (still) be misplaced in the table. StjefNielsen (talk) 13:29, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed Wizmut (talk) 13:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Sark

How come Sark is not listed? See its constitutional status: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/628f88c874f4f647bd6b4617/t/646ddf119771881e3b034066/1684922130048/Constitutional+status+of+Sark-2018+by+Dr+Carolie+Morris.pdf a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 20:16, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Sark is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a different level of jurisdiction than the island of Guernsey. The data entry on this list refers to the entire Bailiwick; I have change the wikilink to reflect this. Wizmut (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Wizmut but please read the source I linked:

• 9. Sark’s position with the Bailiwick of Guernsey is an administrative mechanism rather than an indication of legal status. Sark is a Crown Dependency in its own right, not a part of or dependency of Guernsey.
• 10. Furthermore, at no point in its history has Sark been subject to the rule of Guernsey or supported financially by Guernsey. Sark does share in the resources of Guernsey to some extent. For example, appeals from Sark’s Court are to the Guernsey Royal Court but this is clearly for capacity reasons, and not uncommon in small jurisdictions, as the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (serving six independent states and three British Overseas Territories) or the locating and staffing of the Pitcairn Court of Appeals in New Zealand demonstrates.
• 12. At international law, Sark has been recognised as a self-governing entity responsible for its own governance and development.

a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

There are many self-governing entities that are nonetheless grouped into a larger entity by the ISO 3166-1. See List of autonomous areas by country.

The ISO standard has often been used to settle questions that have two right answers, as is often the case in international relations. Wizmut (talk) 21:27, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Wizmut Yes, Sark has the CQ ISO code. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 21:41, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

It's been reserved but CQ is not in use at this time. Wizmut (talk) 21:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

"Dependencies" is loosely used here as 'things often considered countries but aren't sovereign states'. The use of "Dependencies" to refer to linked islands is different (see also Dependencies of Guadeloupe). CMD (talk) 02:17, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis Yes, Sark is not a dependency of Guernsey. By the way the ISO for Guernsey and Jersey was also only reserved before and yet a

I assume they were still listed here. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 06:20, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

We also list South Ossetia and Abkhazia that don't have an ISO code (and probably others, I didn't check the whole list). So what are the criterion to be listed? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 06:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry it's said "with inclusion within the list being primarily based on the ISO standard ISO 3166-1. For instance, the United Kingdom is considered a single entity, while the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are considered separately. In addition, this list includes certain states with limited recognition not found in ISO 3166-1" => I still think Sark should make it to the list. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 06:56, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are states with limited recognition. Sark is not recognized as a sovereign state at all. Wizmut (talk) 15:30, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Update

According to Worldometer, who uses data from UN there is 8.177 B people.

Please can you update : https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Not serious for Wikipedia to forget 50 M people Alex Si1000 (talk) 20:45, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Must be really important because it concern the world population and add 50 million more people on " the world population" Alex Si1000 (talk) 20:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

We need to use reliable sources (see WP:RS). Swapping out for an unreliable source like 'theworldcounts.com' is not an improvement. MrOllie (talk) 13:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes but Worldometers is ? Alex Si1000 (talk) 20:03, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

See the list of perennial sources. Worldometers is self-published; the UN is a better source. Wizmut (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2024

Saolqui2 (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Chinas full name is the people republic of china Change this into its full name please

 Not done: unnecessarily wordy. "China" is well known enough for people not to mistake it as another nation Cannolis (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 October 2024

I would like to update the population of countries, as this data is outdated. GeographySpaceWiki (talk) 14:29, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. CMD (talk) 15:31, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

About Argentina's population

The Argentinian population for mid-2024 is slightly mistaken, because it should be 47,067,641 inhabitants according to its official source, but unfortunately I can't edit this article in particular. 181.197.204.240 (talk) 18:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands

How come South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands isn't added?

Also, I don't know if this is just a misconception for one, but I see some articles claiming that South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands has a population of 30 people, with other estimates over 1000. Newaccount33333 (talk) 16:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Much like Antarctica, it has no permanent population. Wizmut (talk) 19:22, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Population of Northern Cyprus

On 11 November 2024, Population of Northern Cyprus was declared to be 476,214 by the Statistics Institution of TRNC as of the end of 2023:
Source: TRNC's Statistics Institution: https://stat.gov.ct.tr/HABERLER/n252fus-projeksiyonlar%c4%b1-2019-2023 .
Can someone correct the figure in Article page?EasternMediterraneanFacts (talk) 15:11, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for the find! Wizmut (talk) 23:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Is The UK higher than France?

The automatic response from online search bar suggests The UK population is just over 69 million whilst France is still in the 68 million range. Can this be verified? 92.28.37.89 (talk) 01:44, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Ranking

Having two rank columns is a lot of repetition and gives a prominent spot to what is basically metadata. There just needs to be one rank column, either with respect to sovereign states only or for all entries. Wizmut (talk) 07:25, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Without clear agreement for one or the other, both should be shown. I personally think it's unacceptable to not recognise the ranking by population size of somewhere like Taiwan as 59th, only because China blocks their recognition by the UN.

If we leave time for people to weigh in on this with different opinions, the article can then be edited accordingly. Snowpeek (talk) 03:20, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Adding addition information below for anyone who reads this and wishes to add their opinion here:

This article "List of countries and dependencies by population" has as its intention and purpose to provide, as a resource, a list of both countries and dependencies ranked by population.

This article previously only provided a ranking for sovereign states which are recognised by the UN. This therefore excluded territories that are dependencies (despite this being in the article title), and also excluded disputed territories / countries. Disputed territories may be partially or even widely recognised internationally, and often conduct all of their internal affairs independently, but are not recognised by the UN, often for diplomatic reasons. The UN is an imperfect measure of "validating" which countries and territories should be included in this article.

The following are some of the countries / territories which are not recognised by the UN, or are dependencies: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, Greenland, and Palestine (although Palestine has been granted "Observer" status).

Out of respect for the integrity of the above countries/territories, I think it is important they are ranked equally alongside other countries/territories.

The purpose and intent of this article is listing countries and dependencies by population. It is not the purpose of this article to decide which countries and dependencies are legitimate to be ranked. For the purpose of comparing population sizes, I think all should be included in the ranking. Ultimately, Taiwan is 59th (currently) for population size, and therefore has a larger population than Mali (currently 60th), regardless of if China is blocking the UN's recognition of Taiwan.

If there is broad consensus to remove the UN-based ranking column, I am fine with that. Although, I also think the additional column is narrow, not particularly intrusive, and provides interesting context to the article, informing the reader about UN recognised sovereign states. Snowpeek (talk) 03:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I would favor the ranking that doesn't skip anything. But both is just too much. Most people view WP on a small screen these days[1] and the extra column squeezes the table so fewer rows are visible. It's a shame the fourth or fifth most interesting column has to have the most prominent spot. Wizmut (talk) 05:06, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I have posted on the Geography and Statistics wikiprojects, asking for contributions to this talk page about this. I think it's quite important to get this right (which countries to include) so hopefully we get a few more posts to build some consensus. I'm happy to edit to remove column 1 if there is general agreement on this (or no further comments). I'll leave it a few days to see if there are more contributions.

I agree it's preferable to have 1 column. I was also reluctant to delete the previous contributor's work in ranking UN members only, so I opted to keep both for now. I did view it on my phone (vertically) and with the column being quite narrow, I thought it didn't seem too intrusive. But I agree 1 column would look better. Snowpeek (talk) 05:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

In the mean time, a lot of recent updates by different editors has been reverted, in order to preserve an edit that is under contention. WP:BRD would be preferable as this article must be updated nearly every day. @Snowpeek, I believe any outcome of this discussion could be accomplished without much work (AI can tell anyone how to add a column of mostly sequential numbers). Do you agree that the previous branch can be the one editors use until a consensus is found? Wizmut (talk) 05:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

If you wish to revert it until consensus is found I will accept that. But I would prefer the 2 columns to be live, so visitors from the WikiProjects can see them both easily and add their opinion.

I don't use AI, not all Wikipedia editors are AI users, nor do we need to be. I edited it myself, tidying up multiple areas, adding several internal links, and re-writing the text above the table for clarity. It did take several hours of my time.

If you revert it, once consensus is reached (or no further comments), I will try to spend a few more hours going through and re-adding my edits, without the 2-column layout.

Really, I think my large edit shouldn't have been reverted without discussion, as per Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary, which would have avoided this situation of undoing a lot of my work then further edits being made (I appreciate it wasn't you who reverted it). Snowpeek (talk) 05:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Well I can certainly appreciate the experience of having many hours of work reverted. I didn't know you had made more edits than simply adding a column. It is better to use the edit summary to explain, in a prosaic manner, what the edit was, rather than try and defend it. "Please do not revert" is a sign of an edit that is doomed. And different types of changes are best made in different edits.

As far as AI, it's fine to use it if done in a transparent way, especially for a task that is purely mechanical. If only India could do a census on time then we could just use Template:Static row numbers. Wizmut (talk) 06:00, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I have been reluctant to make multiple edits in case it looks like I'm spamming the article history. But I'll split edits up in future.

I thought I had explained sufficiently the first time. Doing it in multiple edits would have made this clearer. My "please do not revert" was more just frustration someone would come along and undo everything, with barely any explanation, and without discussing it first. They could at least have improved on it rather than reverting! Snowpeek (talk) 06:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Fine Wizmut, congratulations, you win, you reign supreme on the page of countries by population and I give up, I will no longer try to contribute.

I changed Cyprus to Republic of Cyprus, why? This didn't breach use of Common Names. I represent the everyday person, and when I read Cyprus, I think of the island. By reading Republic of Cyprus, that reminds me that this represents only the southern half (governed by Republic of Cyprus). It takes nothing away from clarity (Cyprus is right there in the name) but is a helpful visual reminder of "ah, these numbers are for southern Cyprus only".

Maybe this is lost on you, Lord Wizmut of this article. Have it your way. Close down new ideas for improvements and contributions. I'm sure this is what Wikipedia want - for everyday people to be chased away from contributing and fresh ideas to die. Snowpeek (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)