Ben Curtis / Associated Press
- In some countries, children make up a disproportionately high percentage of the population.
- The World Bank tracks the percentage of each country's population that's aged 14 or younger.
- Among the countries with the most children are Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Uganda.
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The world's population is aging, thanks to improving vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical technologies.
But some countries are still disproportionately young - with children comprising as much as 50% of their populations.
According to the United Nations, disproportionately young populations typically belong to developing countries due to poverty, high child mortality rates, and a lack of infrastructure, medical resources, and education.
In recent years, scholars such as economist Andre Gunder Frank have also cited European colonization of these countries during the 16th to 20th centuries as a cause to the overall lack of resources leading to disproportionately young populations.
The World Bank tracks the percentage of each country's population under the age of 15, allowing us to see which countries had disproportionately young populations in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available.
Read on to see the 25 nations where children make up the biggest percentage of the population.