The natural sex ratio at birth is about 105 boys per 100 girls — in the UN's 2024 estimates the three economies over a million people furthest above it aren't India: they're Azerbaijan, Vietnam and China

The World Bank carries a sex ratio at birth for every economy — male births per female birth, series SP.POP.BRTH.MF, sourced from the UN World Population Prospects and last updated 2026-07-13. These are modeled UN estimates, not counts pulled from birth registers. We read the latest value for every economy; all 217 non-aggregate economies report a 2024 figure. ^mmodeled Biology sets the reference. Absent interference, roughly 105 boys are born for every 100 girls — a ratio near 1.05, with demographers treating about 1.03 to 1.07 as the natural band. It is not a single global constant: sub-Saharan African populations sit at the low end, around 1.01 to 1.03; studies have found no significant evidence of sex-selective inflation across the region, so low values are not the signal here. The distribution's center matches the biological reference. Across the 217 economies the median is 1.051 and the mean 1.052; 97 sit below 1.05 and 92 fall from 1.05 to below 1.07. Only 28 reach 1.07 or higher, and just seven reach 1.08. ^mmodeled Two of those seven are very small populations, where the single-year estimate is far less stable. Liechtenstein tops the raw list at 1.163 on about 41,000 people, and the Northern Mariana Islands sit at 1.151 on about 44,000; Liechtenstein's own series swung from 1.014 in 2000 to 1.202 in 2010, illustrating how much the modeled ratio can move in a population of this size. Tonga (1.081, about 104,000 people) belongs in the same small-population group. ^mmodeled Set aside every economy under a million people and four remain above 1.08: Azerbaijan at 1.113, Vietnam at 1.106, China at 1.103 and Armenia at 1.083. India — for two decades the emblem of the skew — sits at 1.071, just above the upper edge of the broad 1.03-1.07 reference range, while Georgia at 1.066 remains within it. ^mmodeled

The following is analysis, not fact. Read the whole set rather than the one or two countries a desk usually names, and the map of the skew has moved. The single most-skewed economy over a million people in the 2024 estimates is Azerbaijan, and the South Caucasus — Azerbaijan and Armenia — sits at the top alongside China and Vietnam. India, long associated with the 'missing girls' framing, is no longer in that group. The trajectory is the tell. Re-derived from the same series, China fell from 1.172 in 2000 to 1.103 in 2024, Armenia from 1.173 to 1.083, India from 1.095 to 1.071, and Georgia from 1.108 to 1.066 — the historic leaders receding toward the natural band. Vietnam moved the other way, from 1.073 in 2000 to 1.106 in 2024. ^mmodeled The pattern is not a single bloc converging: of the five leaders traced here, four eased while Vietnam rose. What the ratio does not settle is why. Demographers and UN agencies attribute ratios that stay above the natural range to prenatal sex determination paired with son preference and falling fertility — but that is an attribution from the wider literature, not something these counts isolate. ^sspeculative The data here establish the elevation and its geography; they do not, on their own, separate selective abortion from differential under-registration of girls or other reporting artifacts. One more caution against reading a rate as a count. A ratio ranks intensity, not scale: the same elevation across China's roughly 1.4 billion people could involve a far larger absolute number than across Azerbaijan's 10 million, though this rate alone cannot quantify it. Naming who carries the largest human total would need the birth counts, which this rate does not supply.

The load-bearing caveat is the source itself: these are modeled UN estimates, not registered births, and a national vital-statistics office may report a different figure for the same year. Single-year values for small economies can be less stable — the Liechtenstein swing is the clearest warning — which is exactly why the robust claim is the top cluster and the direction of travel, not any one decimal. A second counter cuts at the baseline. Because 1.05 is a band and not a line, and because it runs lower in parts of Africa, a value of 1.06 or 1.07 (India, Georgia) is weak evidence of anything; only the economies clearly above the band carry the finding. And a skewed ratio has more than one possible driver — selection is the standard reading, but the data cannot rule out under-counting of girl births, and we did not test which is operating. ^sspeculative

From Baku and Hanoi, the ranking is not news. Both governments have formally recognized the imbalance and have participated in UN-backed efforts to address it; Vietnam has legislated against prenatal sex disclosure, and Azerbaijan's skew is documented in its own state-supported studies. The vantage from those capitals is that a figure a Western desk files under 'Asia's missing girls' is, on the ground, an openly acknowledged and actively targeted trend — and that the country the label still evokes, India, is no longer where the sharpest edge sits.