United States in 5 numbers: people, income, health

The United States is home to 341,784,857 people, according to the World Bank's figure for 2025. That makes it the third most populous of the 217 countries in the World Bank's data, behind India and China, and about 4 percent of the world's 8.22 billion people. This clip looks at the United States through five World Bank indicators, each ranked against every country that reported a figure for the same year.

The country's land covers 9,147,420 square kilometres, the figure for 2024. The World Bank counts land only, leaving out lakes and rivers, and ranks the United States 3rd 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 4 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 90,027 dollars in 2025. That places the United States 7th of the 186 countries with a 2025 figure, and about six times the world figure of 14,406 dollars. 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 78.9 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 the United States is about five years above it, yet it ranks 58th of 217 countries. A high income per person does not come with a top place on this list. The internet figure counts people who used the internet in the last three months. In the United States that was 94.7 percent in 2024, against a world figure of 71.2 percent, which puts the country 29th 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 the United States 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 national and international agencies, not a head count. All data: World Bank, World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0.