World Bank · 14 metrics compared
Afghanistan vs Iraq
Afghanistan and Iraq compared across 14 demographic and economic metrics. Iraq leads in 8 of the comparable categories.
1
Afghanistan wins
8
Iraq wins
| Metric | Afghanistan | Iraq |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 41,454,761 | 45,074,049 |
| GDP Per Capita | $414 | $5,965 |
| Life Expectancy | 66.0 | 72.3 |
| Population Growth Rate | 2.14 | 2.25 |
| Urban Population | 25.5% | 69.9% |
| Fertility Rate | 4.84 | 3.25 |
| Infant Mortality (per 1000) | 49.9 | 20.7 |
| Literacy Rate | 37.3% | 84.1% |
| Unemployment Rate | 14.0% | 15.2% |
| Internet Users | 15.9% | 78.7% |
| CO2 Per Capita (tonnes) | - | - |
| Physicians Per 1000 | 0.32 | 1.02 |
| Gini Index | - | 29.8 |
| Forest Area | 1.9% | 1.9% |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Afghanistan has a population of 41,454,761 compared to Iraq's 45,074,049.
Across the metrics compared, Afghanistan leads in 1 categories while Iraq leads in 8. However, "better" depends on what matters most to you, income, cost of living, education, climate, and personal preferences all play a role.
International data from the World Bank Open Data API. Population and economic data are latest available estimates.
Comparison based on World Bank Open Data. Most recent available year used for each metric. Green highlighting indicates favorable values where applicable.
Comparing Afghanistan and Iraq on U.S. population demographics requires lining up the underlying the U.S. Census Bureau ACS and decennial files data side by side. The table above runs the comparison on the canonical fields; the narrative below identifies the factor or factors that drive the most meaningful difference between the two.
Practical use of the comparison: read the data above, then drill into the individual Afghanistan and Iraq detail pages for the underlying breakdown. A pairwise comparison answers the relative question; the per-entity pages answer the absolute question.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS, 2026.