India in 5 numbers: people, income, life expectancy

India is home to 1,463,865,525 people, according to the World Bank's figure for 2025. That is more than any of the 217 countries in its data, and more than one in six of everyone on Earth: the World Bank puts the world's population at 8.22 billion. This clip looks at India through five World Bank indicators, each ranked against every country that reported a figure for the same year.

India's land covers 2,973,190 square kilometres, the figure for 2024. That ranks 7th of 214 countries and is a little over two percent of the world's land area. Put the first two numbers side by side and the picture is plain: more than one in six of the world's people live on a little over two percent of its land.

Income per person, measured as gross domestic product per person in current US dollars, was 2,702 dollars in 2025. That places India 144th of the 186 countries with a 2025 figure, and at about a fifth of the world figure of 14,406 dollars. The spread between countries is wide: the lowest reported 234 dollars and the highest 147,252. 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 72.2 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 India sits just below it, 137th of 217 countries. The internet figure counts people who used the internet in the last three months. In India that was 64.9 percent in 2024, against a world figure of 71.2 percent, which puts India 130th of the 182 countries with data for that year. The World Bank also lists a 2025 figure of 70 percent for India, but so few countries have reported 2025 yet that it cannot be ranked, so the clip uses 2024.

How we counted: each figure is from the latest year enough countries have reported to rank India 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 United Nations and other agencies, not a head count. All data: World Bank, World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0.