South Korea has the 26th largest population in the world this year, but its birthrate is among the lowest, a United Nations report showed Wednesday.
The latest report by the United Nations Population Fund showed South Korea's population hitting 48.5 million this year, up 200,000 from the previous year.
Despite the gain in the total number of people, the country's average fertility rate covering the past five years is the third lowest among 186 countries surveyed.
The average fertility rate, or the number of children an average woman of child-bearing age has in a set period of time, stood at 1.24. Only Hong Kong and Bosnia and Herzegovina had lower numbers.
The report forecast that at the present rate, the South Korea's population will peak at 49.48 million in 2025 and drop to 44.07 million in 2050.
If North Korea's population is added to the total, the number of people living on the Korean Peninsula tops 72.5 million.
The report, meanwhile, said the world population amounts to 6.98 billion people this year, up 79.30 million from the year before. It added that in 20 years, India will replace China as the most populace country in the world.