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Total Elderly

Map No. 6

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In 2002 7% of the world population was over 65 years old. Only 1% of the population of the United Arab Emirates was over 65 years old. China has the largest elderly population (92 million) but this is only 7% of the Chinese population. Growing proportions of elderly people are partly a result of people living longer and, often, of fewer births reducing the size of the younger population. Africa is home to only 6% of the world's population aged over 65.

"We live in an era of unprecedented, rapid and inexorable global ageing." HelpAge International, 2005 (www.helpage.org)

This map shows the worldwide distribution of people over 65 years old.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Interactive (SVG) version of the map
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page