China in 5 numbers: people, income, life expectancy

China is home to 1,406,585,000 people, according to the World Bank's figure for 2025. That makes it the second most populous of the 217 countries in the World Bank's data, and about 17 percent of the world's 8,215,424,893 people. This clip looks at China through five World Bank indicators, each ranked against every country that reported a figure for the same year.

The country's land covers 9,388,210 square kilometres, the figure for 2024. The World Bank counts land only, leaving out lakes and rivers, and ranks China 2nd of 214 countries. That is about 7 percent of the world's 129,763,686 square kilometres of land. Put the first two numbers side by side and roughly 17 percent of the world's people live on about 7 percent of its land.

Income per person, measured as gross domestic product per person in current US dollars, was 13,862 dollars in 2025. That places China 72nd of the 186 countries with a 2025 figure. The world figure is 14,406 dollars, so China sits just under it. GDP per person is an average. It divides the whole economy by the whole population and says nothing about how income is shared.

Life expectancy at birth was 78 years in 2024: how long a newborn would live if the death rates of that year held for its whole life. The world figure is 73.5 years, so China is about four and a half years above it, and ranks 69th of 217 countries. The internet figure counts the share of people who used the internet. In China that was 92 percent in 2024, against a world figure of 71.2 percent, which puts the country 45th of the 182 countries with data for that year.

How we counted: each figure is from the latest year enough countries have reported to rank China against all of them, read from the World Bank's open data API in October 2026. Each rank counts only the countries that reported a value for that same year, which is why the totals differ from one number to the next. The population, income and life expectancy figures are estimates that the World Bank compiles from the UN and other agencies, not a head count. All data: World Bank, World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0.