Country record
Born in Western Sahara: the life the odds give you
The chance of being born in Western Sahara is 1 in 14,700 — 0.007% of the 132.1 million babies born worldwide in 2023.
Formula: 8,987 births in Western Sahara in 2023 ÷ 132,110,261 births worldwide in 2023
UN World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant
Life expectancy and survival
A child born in Western Sahara in 2023 could expect 71.4 years. The world figure that year was 70.3.
Female born in Western Sahara in 2023: 73.5 years. Male born in Western Sahara in 2023: 69.7 years. +1.1 years compared with the world figure.
Where the deaths fall
Of 1,000 babies born in Western Sahara in 2023, this many have died by each age.
- Median age at death
- 76.0
- Share reaching 65
- 7,679.0%
Survive to 20 here, and your chance of reaching 65 is 79.7%.
Formula: l(65) ÷ l(20)
| Age | Deaths per 1,000 born, by age band |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | 23.7 / 1,000 |
| 1–5 | 4.5 / 1,000 |
| 5–15 | 4.4 / 1,000 |
| 15–50 | 58.7 / 1,000 |
| 50–65 | 140.8 / 1,000 |
| 65–80 | 405.5 / 1,000 |
| 80–100 | 361.0 / 1,000 |
How the 1 in 14,700 is calculated
Two published numbers, one division.
| Value | Year |
|---|---|
| Births in Western Sahara, 2023 | 8,987 |
| Births worldwide, 2023 | 132,110,261 |
| Share of world births | 0.0068% |
| The odds | 1 in 14,700 |
Why this differs from numbers you may have seen elsewhere
Two things change the answer: which year you use, and whether the denominator is births or people alive. We use births in the same year as the numerator, over all 237 locations the UN publishes. A figure sampled over people alive answers a different question — the odds a living person is from that country — and will always be larger for large countries.
The weights used for sampling sum to 132,110,261 births, so no location is silently excluded.
Childhood
28.2 of every 1,000 children born in Western Sahara die before their fifth birthday.
- That is about 1 in 35.
- 28.2 / 1,000
- Infant mortality: 23.8 per 1,000 live births.
- 23.8 / 1,000
- Share reaching their 15th birthday: 9,674.0%.
- 9,674.0%
- Total fertility rate
- 2.16
World Bank World Development Indicators, 2023.
The past: 1950 to 2023
Life expectancy in Western Sahara has moved +36.5 years since 1950, when it was 34.9.
Western Sahara crossed 70 years of life expectancy in 2018.
Life expectancy at birth
Births per year
Births in Western Sahara peaked at 9,354 in 2017. In 2023 there were 8,987.
Play a life born here in 1970Where Western Sahara sits
Birth Lottery Index
A girl born in Western Sahara in 2023 sits at the 46th percentile of the world's life-expectancy distribution, weighting every country by its own births.
Formula: the birth-weighted share of the 237 locations whose female life expectancy is at or below 71.39 years.
- Rank by births: 171 of 237.
- 8,987
- Rank by life expectancy: 161 of 237.
- 71.4
- Rank by under-5 mortality: 176 of 237.
- 28.2
Population and migration
- Population
- 579,729 (2023)
- Median age
- 32.0 years (2023)
- Urban share
- 66.4 % (2023)estimated — tier C, imputed
- Population density
- 2.2 /km² (2023)
- Net migration
- 5,606 (2023)
Nearby and similar countries
Other locations in Northern Africa, and one with a similar life expectancy.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the odds of being born in Western Sahara?
- 14,700 of being born here. in 2023 — 8,987 of the 132,110,261 babies born worldwide that year.
- How long does a child born in Western Sahara live?
- Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 71.4 years: 73.5 for girls and 69.7 for boys. That is a population average, not a promise to any individual.
- What is child mortality like in Western Sahara?
- 28.2 of every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday, which is about 1 in 35.
- Can I play a life born in Western Sahara?
- Yes — the button at the top of this page draws a birth in Western Sahara, and you can choose any year from 1950 to 2023.
- Where does this page's data come from?
- UN World Population Prospects 2024 for births, population, and life tables; World Bank World Development Indicators for income, urbanisation, education, and cause-of-death composition. Every figure names its year.
Data and licence
The figures on this page are derived from the Eighth Billion dataset v1.
Source data is used under its publishers' licences and attributed on every page that displays it.
Play a life born in Western Sahara
Pick a year between 1950 and 2023, or let it be drawn.
Play a life born in Western SaharaEighth Billion simulates the odds of a birth. It does not predict any person's life, health, or lifespan.