Country record
Born in Iceland: the life the odds give you
The chance of being born in Iceland is 1 in 30,391 — 0.003% of the 132.1 million babies born worldwide in 2023.
Formula: 4,347 births in Iceland in 2023 ÷ 132,110,261 births worldwide in 2023
UN World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant
Life expectancy and survival
A child born in Iceland in 2023 could expect 82.7 years. The world figure that year was 70.3.
Female born in Iceland in 2023: 84.5 years. Male born in Iceland in 2023: 81.0 years. +12.4 years compared with the world figure.
Where the deaths fall
Of 1,000 babies born in Iceland in 2023, this many have died by each age.
- Median age at death
- 85.9
- Share reaching 65
- 9,010.0%
Survive to 20 here, and your chance of reaching 65 is 90.3%.
Formula: l(65) ÷ l(20)
| Age | Deaths per 1,000 born, by age band |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | 1.0 / 1,000 |
| 1–5 | 0.5 / 1,000 |
| 5–15 | 0.5 / 1,000 |
| 15–50 | 19.1 / 1,000 |
| 50–65 | 77.9 / 1,000 |
| 65–80 | 207.2 / 1,000 |
| 80–100 | 678.5 / 1,000 |
How the 1 in 30,391 is calculated
Two published numbers, one division.
| Value | Year |
|---|---|
| Births in Iceland, 2023 | 4,347 |
| Births worldwide, 2023 | 132,110,261 |
| Share of world births | 0.0033% |
| The odds | 1 in 30,391 |
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
1.6 of every 1,000 children born in Iceland die before their fifth birthday.
- That is about 1 in 638.
- 1.6 / 1,000
- Infant mortality: 1.0 per 1,000 live births.
- 1.0 / 1,000
- Share reaching their 15th birthday: 9,980.0%.
- 9,980.0%
- Total fertility rate
- 1.54
World Bank World Development Indicators, 2023.
The past: 1950 to 2023
Life expectancy in Iceland has moved +11.7 years since 1950, when it was 71.0.
Iceland crossed 80 years of life expectancy in 2001.
Life expectancy at birth
Births per year
Births in Iceland peaked at 5,066 in 2009. In 2023 there were 4,347.
Play a life born here in 1970Cause of death
Of all deaths recorded in Iceland in 2023, this is how they divide.
| Cause of death | Value |
|---|---|
| Communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional | 4.2% |
| Non-communicable | 90.0% |
| Injuries | 5.8% |
World Bank WDI, WHO-origin cause-of-death shares, 2021.
Where Iceland sits
Birth Lottery Index
A girl born in Iceland in 2023 sits at the 98th 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 82.69 years.
- Rank by births: 182 of 237.
- 4,347
- Rank by life expectancy: 25 of 237.
- 82.7
- Rank by under-5 mortality: 2 of 237.
- 1.6
Population and migration
- Population
- 387,558 (2023)
- Median age
- 35.8 years (2023)
- Urban share
- 94.2 % (2023)
- Population density
- 3.9 /km² (2023)
- Net migration
- 4,630 (2023)
Nearby and similar countries
Other locations in Northern Europe, and one with a similar life expectancy.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the odds of being born in Iceland?
- 30,391 of being born here. in 2023 — 4,347 of the 132,110,261 babies born worldwide that year.
- How long does a child born in Iceland live?
- Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 82.7 years: 84.5 for girls and 81.0 for boys. That is a population average, not a promise to any individual.
- What is child mortality like in Iceland?
- 1.6 of every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday, which is about 1 in 638.
- Can I play a life born in Iceland?
- Yes — the button at the top of this page draws a birth in Iceland, 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 Iceland
Pick a year between 1950 and 2023, or let it be drawn.
Play a life born in IcelandEighth Billion simulates the odds of a birth. It does not predict any person's life, health, or lifespan.