What is the world population?

Historic growth of world population

1000 years BCE the world population was 50 million people. 500 years BCE it was 100 million, and in the year 0 around 200 million people were estimated to live on Earth. After the Great Famine of 1315–17 and the Black Death in 1350, the world population was around 370 million people and around 1800 it reached 1 billion. 

World population by the billions

The modern human has existed for over 300,000 years. But it took just 200 years to go from 1 to 7 billion people. Going from 7 to 10 billion is expected to take another 45 years. 

You are one in a hundred billion

Ever wondered how many humans have lived on Earth? The answer can only be a rough approximation of course but according to most estimates around 100 billion people have existed since the first modern Homo sapiens in Africa about 315,000 years ago.

Population growth scenarios

The United Nations works with three different scenarios for population growth: Low, medium, and high. The most likely scenario (medium variant) predicts that world population will grow to 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100. TheWorldCounts uses the medium variant unless specified otherwise.

Less likely (but possible) growth scenarios

In the high-growth scenarium world population is projected to reach over 15 billion in 2100 while in the low-growth scenarium world population will start decreasing around 2055 with an estimated global population of 7.3 billion in 2100. Currently, the world population is growing by about 80 million people each year.

Uneven regional growth

The projected population growth is very unevenly distributed between world regions with most of the growth taking place in Africa and Asia. The population of Africa is expected to double between 2016 and 2050 making it by far the region with the fastest growing population in the world. Asia is expected to add another 800 million people to its population between 2016 and 2050 while the population of Europe will remain constant while North and South America will see moderate increases.

Lifespan of the human population

Between 2005 and 2015 the global average life expectancy rose 3.6 years and is now 70.8 years. Life expectancy went up in all regions with the biggest increase in Africa of 6.6 years. However, with 60.2 years, Africa still has a low life expectancy compared to 71.8 in Asia, 74.6 in Latin America, 77.2 in Europe, 77.9 in Oceania and 79.2 in North America.

Historical life expectancy

In prehistoric times and even as late as 1900, the average life expectancy was around 30 years. The “boom” in the human lifespan has contributed significantly to the explosive growth of the world population.

Stille huge country differences

In Japan life expectancy is 83.7 years and in most western countries it is over 80 years. In many African countries life expectancy is still below 55.

The median age also differs widely between the world’s regions:

• Europe: 42 years
• North America: 35 years
• Oceania / Australia: 33 years
• South America: 31 years
• Asia: 31 years
• Africa: 19 years

Sex ratio of the human population

Of the 7,550,000,000 people on Earth in 2017, 3,809,000,000 were male and 3,741,000,000 were females, meaning that in a group of 1,000 people randomly selected from the world population, on average 504 would be male and 496 would be female.

Worldwide, about 107 boys are born for every 100 girls because of a higher female fetal mortality. However, in most parts of the world, infant mortality is higher for boys than for girls and life expectancy is higher for women than for men partly balancing out the difference at birth.  Globally there are roughly 102 men for every 100 women.

Social factors affect the sex ratio
Sex-selective abortion and infanticide are thought to significantly skew the naturally occurring ratio in some populations, such as China and India, where the introduction of ultrasound scans in the late 1980s has led to a birth sex ratio (males to females) of 1.18

Population of the world’s regions (continents)

2017, 2030, 2050 and 2100, according to the UN medium-variant population projection (millions). 

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision. New York: United Nations. 

The Challenge: Sustaining a world population of 10 billion people without completely destroying the planet

• The world population is growing with more than 200,000 people a day.
• The number of consumers is growing even faster: with more than 450,000 people a day.
• By 2030 we will be 8.5 billion people and 5.6 billion consumers.
• We are already over-exploiting the world’s natural resources by 75 percent.