Countries in South America by population

Territories and other places

Not ranked: dependencies of the states above, places whose status is disputed. Highest first.

Place	People	Status
Falkland Islands	4,550	Territory of United Kingdom

Questions

Which country in South America has the largest population?

Brazil has the largest population in South America: 213 million people (2025). Next come Colombia (53 million people) and Argentina (46 million people).

Which country in South America has the smallest population?

Suriname, with 639,850 people (2025).

What is the typical population of a country in South America?

The median of the 12 countries in South America is 19 million people: half are above it, half below. The median, not the average, because a few countries at the top would drag an average far above almost everyone.

Where do the figures come from?

Mid-year population estimate: everyone living there, whatever their citizenship. Source: World Bank, 2025. Only independent states are ranked; territories are listed separately. A country’s continent follows Natural Earth; the handful of island states it files under the open ocean are placed by their UN subregion.

Source: World Bank. Where the World Bank has no estimate, the population is Wikidata’s. Countries sharing a value share a rank. All sources.