🇸🇹Median age in Sao Tome and Principe

Key numbers

Sao Tome and Principe among its neighbours

In plain language

Line up everyone in Sao Tome and Principe by age. The person in the middle is 19.3. That is the median: it says nothing about how old the oldest are or how many babies were born last year, only where the midpoint falls.

A median of 19.3 is younger than the world's 30.6. For scale, the youngest country here, Central African Republic, has a median of 14.4 and the oldest, Japan, 49.4. Life expectancy at birth in Sao Tome and Principe is 69.7 years, so a person at the median age has, on a rough reckoning, about 50.4 years ahead of them.

The 2024figure is the UN's medium-variant number; its estimates end in 2023. For a year this close the projection barely differs from an estimate, since everyone counted has already been born.

Questions

What is the median age in Sao Tome and Principe?

19.3 years in 2024, by the UN World Population Prospects 2024. Half of the people in Sao Tome and Principe are younger than 19.3 and half are older. The median is not the average age; it is the midpoint, so a handful of very old people do not move it.

Is Sao Tome and Principe's population young or old?

Young. Sao Tome and Principe is 11.3 years below the world median of 30.6, and ranks 160th oldest of the 193 countries here. The youngest country, Central African Republic, has a median of 14.4; the oldest, Japan, 49.4.

How does Sao Tome and Principe compare to Guinea-Bissau?

Guinea-Bissau has a median age of 19.2, 0.1 years younger than Sao Tome and Principe. The two sit next to each other in the ranking, at 34th and 33rd youngest.