| Human Population |
Article Index for Human |
Shopping Population |
Articles about World Population |
Website Links For World |
Information AboutHuman Population |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT WORLD POPULATION | |
| population | |
| demography | |
| environmental science | |
|
The world population is the total number of Human s on Earth at a given time. In July, 2007, the world's Population had reached over 6.6 billion. In line with population projections, this figure continues to Grow at rates that were unprecedented before the 20th century, although the rate of increase has almost halved since its peak, which was reached in 1963, of 2.2 percent per year. The World's Population is expected to reach around 12 billion by the year 2050. Much larger than previous expectations. POPULATION FIGURES Below is a table with historical and predicted population figures shown in millions. World population prospects : the 2004 revision population database The World at un.org Population Growth over Human History The availability of historical population figures varies by region. Please see World Population Estimates for more figures.
RATE OF INCREASE See Also: Population growth s. The vertical axis is logarithmic and is millions of people.]] Different regions have different rates of Population Growth , but in the 20th Century , the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to Medical Advances and massive increase in agricultural productivity made by the Green Revolution . In 2000, the s, the world human population currently increases by 203,800 every day. Current world population (ranked) The 2007 CIA factbook increased this to 211,090 people every day. Globally, the population Growth Rate has been steadily declining from its peak of 2.19% in 1963 , but growth remains high in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa .Ron Nielsen, ''The little green handbook'', Picador, New York (2006) ISBN 0-312-42581-3 In some countries there is Negative population growth (ie. net decrease in population over time), especially in Central and Eastern Europe (mainly due to low Fertility Rate s) and Southern Africa (due to the high number of HIV -related deaths). Within the next decade, Japan and some countries in Western Europe are also expected to encounter negative population growth due to Sub-replacement Fertility rates. Population growth which exceeds the Carrying Capacity of an area or environment results in Overpopulation . Conversely, such areas may be considered "underpopulated" if the population is not large enough to maintain an Economic System . These numbers show that the world's population has tripled in 72 years, and doubled in 38 years up to the year 1999. Including some More Estimates , the world population has been doubled or will double in the following years (with two different starting points). Note how, during the 2nd Millennium , each doubling has taken roughly half as long as the previous doubling. POPULATION DISTRIBUTION map of the world in 1994, when the world's population was at 5.6 billion; Observe the high densities along the Ganges , Yangtze and Yellow river basins, the Nile River Delta , Southern Japan , Western Europe , the Indonesia n island of Java , Central America (especially El Salvador , one of the world's most densely populated nations), the United States ' BosWash Megalopolis , and Southern California .]] Asia accounts for over 60% of the world population with almost 3.8 billion people. China and India alone comprise 20% and 16% respectively. Africa follows with 840 million people, 12% of the world population. Europe 's 710 million people make up 11% of the world's population. North America is home to 514 million (8%), and South America to 371 million (5.3%). THE 15 MOST POPULOUS NATIONS From DSW-Datareport 2006 ("Deutschen Stiftung Weltbevölkerung"): # China : 1.32 billion (about 20% of world population) # India : 1.12 billion (about 17%) # United States : 300 million (about 4.6%) # Indonesia : 225 million (about 3.5%) # Brazil : 186 million (about 2.8%) # Pakistan : 165 million (about 2.5%) # Bangladesh : 147 million (about 2.3%) # Russia : 143 million (about 2.2%) # Nigeria : 135 million (about 2.1%) # Japan : 128 million (about 2.0%) # Mexico : 108 million (about 1.7%) # Philippines : 86 million (about 1.3%) # Vietnam : 84 million (about 1.3%) # Germany : 82 million (about 1.3%) # Egypt : 75 million (about 1.2%) Approximately 4.3 billion people live in these 15 countries, representing roughly two-thirds of the world's population. If added together, all nations in the European Union , with 494 million people - about 7.3% of world's population in 2006 - would be third in the list above. DEMOGRAPHICS OF YOUTH According to the 2006 Before adding mortality rates, the 1990s saw the greatest number of raw births worldwide, especially in the years after 1995 , despite the fact that the birth rate was not as high as in the 1960s . In fact, because of the 160 million-per-year raw births after 1995, the time it took to reach the next billion reached its fastest pace (only 12 years), as world population reached 6 billion people in 1999, when at the beginning of the decade, the reaching was designated for the year 2000 , by most demographers. People aged 7 through 17 make up these births, today. 1985–1990 marked the period with the fastest yearly population change in world history. Even though the early 1960s had a greater growth rate than in the mid and late 1980s , the population change hovered around 83 million people in the five-year period, with an all-time growth change of nearly 88 million in 1990 . The reason is because the world's population was greater in the mid and late 1980s (around 5 billion) than in the early 1960s (around 3 billion), which meant that the growth rate in the 1980s was no factor on the dramatic population change. People aged 17 to 22 make up these births, today. FORECAST OF WORLD POPULATION :''See also: UN Population Projections The future of world population could be significantly affected by the worldwide HIV/AIDS Pandemic . In Africa, Birth Rates are already the highest in the world, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa . But if HIV/AIDS is controlled or even eradicated, world population could increase much faster than predicted. In the long run, the future Population Growth of the world is difficult to predict. Birth rates are declining slightly on average, but vary greatly between developed countries (where birth rates are often at or below replacement levels), developing countries, and different ethnicities. Death Rate s can change unexpectedly due to Disease , Wars and Catastrophes , or Advances In Medicine . The UN itself has issued multiple projections of future world population, based on different assumptions. Over the last 10 years, the UN had consistently revised these projections downward, until the 2006 revision issued March 14, 2007 revised the 2050 mid range estimate upwards by 273 million. Alternately, the United States Census Bureau issued a revised forecast for world population that increased its projection for the year 2050 to above 9.4 billion people (which was the UN's 1996 projection for 2050), up from 9.1 billion people. The latest Census Bureau estimates for the same upcoming years are as follows:http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html Other projections of population growth predict that the world's population will eventually crest, though it is uncertain exactly when or how. In some scenarios, the population will crest as early as the mid-21st century at under 9 billion, due to gradually decreasing birth rates, (the "low variant" of ), The "high variant" from the same source gives a population between 10 and 11 billion in 2050. In other scenarios, disasters triggered by the growing population's demand for scarce resources will eventually lead to a sudden population crash, or even a Malthusian Catastrophe (also see Overpopulation ). Below is a table of predicted population figures. The World at Six Billion Population Growth over Human History Please see World Population Estimates for more figures.
PREDICTIONS BASED ON OUR GROWING POPULATION In 1798 , Thomas Malthus incorrectly predicted that population growth would eventually outrun food supply in the middle of the 19th century, resulting in catastrophe. In 1968 , Paul R. Ehrlich reignited this argument with his book '' The Population Bomb '', which helped give the issue significant attention throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The dire predictions of Ehrlich and other Neo-Malthusian s were vigorously challenged by a number of economists, notably Julian Simon . On the opposite end of the spectrum there are a number of people who argue that today's low , ''The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity'' (ISBN 0-465-05050-6), by Longman, and ''Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future'' (ISBN 1-56663-606-X), by Wattenberg applying Bayesian Probability to world population to argue that the end of humanity will come sooner than we usually think. DIE OFF - a population crash resource page It should be noted that between 1950 and 1984, as the ) may test Malthus and Ehrlich critics. Peak Oil: the threat to our food security The world population has grown by about four billion since the beginning of the Green Revolution and most believe that, without the Revolution, there would be greater Famine and Malnutrition than the UN presently documents (approximately 850 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition in 2005). The limits of a Green Revolution? NUMBER OF HUMANS THAT HAVE EVER LIVED Estimates of the number of human beings who have ever lived on Earth constitute an extremely large range, with low estimates around 45 billion, and the highest estimates topping out around 125 billion. Many of the more robust estimates fall into the range of 90 to 110 billion humans. It is impossible to make anything approaching a precise count of the number of human beings who have ever lived, for the following reasons:
Considering the relatively small population in the early phases of human development, the first two factors are likely to be less significant than the third. Any such precise population count offered by any source is simply the numeric result of populations statistics, which necessarily used estimates and rough averages as their basis. While they may, if done astutely, provide us with a remote idea about the number of humans who have ever lived on the Earth, the margin of error should always be regarded as being in the billions, or even the tens of billions of people. "Guesstimating the number of people ever born... requires selecting population sizes for different points from antiquity to the present and applying assumed birth rates to each period..." How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth? by Carl Haub, 2002; calculated from a start date of 50,000 years BC. According to one set of calculations based on 2002 data:
The claim often made in various popular sources that more than half the humans ever born are alive today, is therefore in all probability quite exaggerated. SEE ALSO
REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|