Tanya says China is the world's most populous country, as she has heard since childhood

Why

Tanya's answer was correct for a very long time, and 'China has the most people' was true for decades — which is exactly why it can keep feeling true even after the actual numbers have changed. According to United Nations data, India's population overtook China's in 2023, with India reaching roughly 1.4286 billion people compared to China's roughly 1.4257 billion around that time. This was not a sudden jump — China's population had already peaked in 2022 and started slowly declining, while India's has kept growing, so the two lines were bound to cross once China's growth turned negative. Test it: a fact being true for a long stretch of your own lifetime (or your parents' lifetime) makes it feel permanent, but population figures are not fixed forever — they are worth rechecking rather than assuming the version you first learned is still current. Her brother is right: India passed China to become the world's most populous country in 2023, per UN population data — a fact that was true for a long time is not automatically still true today.