The world’s population in 1956

2.78B people. One hexagon represents 100,000 people.

Open the 1956 map →

Drawn as they stood de facto, the map this year includes French Equatorial Africa, Czechoslovakia, Germany, French West Africa, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Yugoslavia.

Largest populations in 1956

RegionPopulation
1Japan72.1M
2Uttar Pradesh68.5M
3Sichuan64.5M
4Brazil63.4M
5Java55.0M
6Shandong50.6M
7United Kingdom50.2M
8Federal Republic of Germany, DE50.2M
9East Pakistan49.6M
10Henan45.8M

The largest relative change from 1955: Beijing, CN (+318k people).