We estimate this from the age structure of the world’s living population, using United Nations World Population Prospects 2024 data: for every age above yours, how many people are alive today. It is a sum over the whole world, not your age turned into a percentage of the population.
The data describes five-year age groups as at 1 July each year, so we interpolate twice — once between years to reach today’s date, and once across ages with a monotone curve — which is why someone who is 46 and seven months gets a slightly different answer to someone who turned 46 last week. Everything shown is an estimate, and your date of birth stays in your browser.
+How is the number of people older than me calculated?
By adding up the estimated number of living people at every age above your exact age, using the United Nations’ age distribution for the world population. It is not the world population multiplied by your age.
+How accurate is it?
It is an estimate, good to a percent or two for most ages. The underlying UN figures are themselves estimates and projections, and above about 95 they thin out, so we soften the wording rather than show false precision.
+Is my date of birth stored or shared?
No. The calculation runs in your browser against a small bundled dataset. Your birthday is never sent anywhere, never saved, never put in the URL, and never included in anything you share.
+Where does the population data come from?
United Nations World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant — the standard reference for world population by age. Long-run historical totals before 1950 come from published historical estimates.