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World population
In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years to reach 8 billion.
The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century.
The total number of births globally is currently (2015–2020) 140 million/year, which is projected to peak during the period 2040–2045 at 141 million/year and then decline slowly to 126 million/year by 2100. The total number of deaths is currently 57 million/year and is projected to grow steadily to 121 million/year by 2100.
The median age of human beings as of 2020[update] is 31 years.
Estimates of world population by their nature are an aspect of modernity, possible only since the Age of Discovery. Early estimates for the population of the world date to the 17th century: William Petty, in 1682, estimated the world population at 320 million (current estimates ranging close to twice this number); by the late 18th century, estimates ranged close to one billion (consistent with current estimates). More refined estimates, broken down by continents, were published in the first half of the 19th century, at 600 million to 1 billion in the early 1800s and 800 million to 1 billion in the 1840s.
It is difficult for estimates to be better than rough approximations, as even current population estimates are fraught with uncertainties from 3% to 5%.
The history of the world's population involves a great deal of speculation. Before 9000 BC, all humans were hunter-gatherers living in small bands that usually verged on the edge of extinction. Survival depended on the capture of hunted animals; if supply of animals dwindled for any reason, humans would starve; if the human population grew too large the number of surviving animals would shrink, leading to starvation the next year for the hunters. (Humans had not yet invented the technique of domesticating and herding animals.) The hunting cultures sometimes fished, and usually gathered wild seeds and nuts, but they did not plant or grow vegetables or any other crops. One very rough estimate is 8 million hunters lived circa 9000 BC when the first of several "agricultural revolutions" occurred in the eastern hemisphere. (The dates are very conjectural.) About the year 9000 BC in the Middle East, for reasons unknown, some groups began to domesticate and graze sheep. The practice of cultivating plants was invented independently in three places: in the Middle East and Europe (wheat, 6500–3500 BC), in Southeast Asia (rice, 6800–4000 BC), and in Central America and Peru (corn, about 2500 BC).
Agriculture provided a steady food supply that could be stored for a year or longer in order to minimize the risk of famine. Farm production could be expanded by systematic human exertion. The new technology of farming meant that the food supply was proportional to the number of workers who could plant and harvest the crops. Every new pair of hands meant more food for the community, so children were valued in agricultural societies. Later, additional workers found useful work in building irrigation canals and systems that provided a stable water supply for crops, especially in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru and Mexico. The population could now grow because new people paid their own way. (It would take many centuries before the arable land supply became a limiting factor.) However, death rates were high, especially for infants and children, so even with high birth rates growth was slow. The same amount of land could support either 1,000 hunters or 100,000 farmers, and it is easy to see which side ultimately would win a fight for the land. Farmers gathered in permanent villages, and through a process of warfare consolidated into much larger states, including those in China, India, Egypt and Mesopotamia. From 300 to 1400 AD large agricultural states also existed throughout the eastern United States, called the "Hopewell tradition" and "Mississippian cultures". They are most famous as Mound Builders, but their culture collapsed (for unknown reasons) by 1500. The natives encountered by the English and French were nomadic hunters who supplemented their meat diet with cultivated vegetables.
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World population
In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years to reach 8 billion.
The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century.
The total number of births globally is currently (2015–2020) 140 million/year, which is projected to peak during the period 2040–2045 at 141 million/year and then decline slowly to 126 million/year by 2100. The total number of deaths is currently 57 million/year and is projected to grow steadily to 121 million/year by 2100.
The median age of human beings as of 2020[update] is 31 years.
Estimates of world population by their nature are an aspect of modernity, possible only since the Age of Discovery. Early estimates for the population of the world date to the 17th century: William Petty, in 1682, estimated the world population at 320 million (current estimates ranging close to twice this number); by the late 18th century, estimates ranged close to one billion (consistent with current estimates). More refined estimates, broken down by continents, were published in the first half of the 19th century, at 600 million to 1 billion in the early 1800s and 800 million to 1 billion in the 1840s.
It is difficult for estimates to be better than rough approximations, as even current population estimates are fraught with uncertainties from 3% to 5%.
The history of the world's population involves a great deal of speculation. Before 9000 BC, all humans were hunter-gatherers living in small bands that usually verged on the edge of extinction. Survival depended on the capture of hunted animals; if supply of animals dwindled for any reason, humans would starve; if the human population grew too large the number of surviving animals would shrink, leading to starvation the next year for the hunters. (Humans had not yet invented the technique of domesticating and herding animals.) The hunting cultures sometimes fished, and usually gathered wild seeds and nuts, but they did not plant or grow vegetables or any other crops. One very rough estimate is 8 million hunters lived circa 9000 BC when the first of several "agricultural revolutions" occurred in the eastern hemisphere. (The dates are very conjectural.) About the year 9000 BC in the Middle East, for reasons unknown, some groups began to domesticate and graze sheep. The practice of cultivating plants was invented independently in three places: in the Middle East and Europe (wheat, 6500–3500 BC), in Southeast Asia (rice, 6800–4000 BC), and in Central America and Peru (corn, about 2500 BC).
Agriculture provided a steady food supply that could be stored for a year or longer in order to minimize the risk of famine. Farm production could be expanded by systematic human exertion. The new technology of farming meant that the food supply was proportional to the number of workers who could plant and harvest the crops. Every new pair of hands meant more food for the community, so children were valued in agricultural societies. Later, additional workers found useful work in building irrigation canals and systems that provided a stable water supply for crops, especially in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru and Mexico. The population could now grow because new people paid their own way. (It would take many centuries before the arable land supply became a limiting factor.) However, death rates were high, especially for infants and children, so even with high birth rates growth was slow. The same amount of land could support either 1,000 hunters or 100,000 farmers, and it is easy to see which side ultimately would win a fight for the land. Farmers gathered in permanent villages, and through a process of warfare consolidated into much larger states, including those in China, India, Egypt and Mesopotamia. From 300 to 1400 AD large agricultural states also existed throughout the eastern United States, called the "Hopewell tradition" and "Mississippian cultures". They are most famous as Mound Builders, but their culture collapsed (for unknown reasons) by 1500. The natives encountered by the English and French were nomadic hunters who supplemented their meat diet with cultivated vegetables.
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