Seven billion people and counting

 Did you know that the world's
population is about to hit 7 billion?  

It took until 1804 before the world’s population hit its first billion, but the time it has taken to reach subsequent billions has sped up considerably as you can see below.
  • 450 million in 1500
  • 1 billion in 1804
  • 2 billion in 1927 (123 years later)
  • 3 billion in 1960 (33 years later)
  • 4 billion in 1974 (14 years later)
  • 5 billion in 1987 (13 years later)
  • 6 billion in 1999 (12 years later)
  • 7 billion in 2011 (12 years later)
According to the United Nations, the world's population will hit 9.2 billion by 2050. However the rate of growth has slowed and currently growing at a rate of around 1.15 % per year.  Growth has slowed in recent years due to increased family planning in third world countries (reducing the number of children being born), higher education of women and improvements to health and immunisation resulting in babies surviving and people are living longer.  However according to the United Nations, fertility is not declining as rapidly as expected in some poor countries and has shown a slight increase in some wealthier countries. The US is growing faster than many rich countries, largely due to high immigration and higher fertility among Hispanic immigrants.

Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century, from 1 billion at present to 3.6 billion. This is of concern as Africa is a troubled continent that often has difficulties feeding its people.

Top 10 countries by population size:
  1. China                 1 336 718 015
  2. India                  1 189 172 906
  3. United States      313 232 044
  4. Indonesia            245 613 043
  5. Brazil                    203 429 773
  6. Pakistan               187 342 721
  7. Bangladesh         158 570 535
  8. Nigeria                 155 215 573
  9. Russia                 138 739 892
  10. Japan                  126 475 664
    55. Australia             22 648 076

Heres a question to ponder . . . should the worlds population continue to grow at its current rate?

Source:
United Nations
CAI Fact Book (link) – great school resource 
Watch the World Clock tick by: link
~oOo~



Comments

  1. That's just crazy, Jo!! I can hardly believe how huge the population is in some of those countries on the list of the top 10! And they don't have a lot of land mass to fit all those people in - we really are blessed with wide open spaces here (makes you wonder why people like to crowd into cities and suburbs)!

    I don't think anyone can really do anything about the population growth - and I'm not sure (in my opinion) whether it even matters... God has it all in His control and He would never let it get out of hand - it only takes one earthquake or volcano in a highly populated area for masses of population to die (as sad as that sounds), which has to set back population growth for awhile...

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  2. It's almost impossible to comprehend the size of places like China!! I am so glad we have so much empty space. Room to move. That might be our "country" side of us!!

    But I was surprised, and doubled checked, that the USA is up there in the top 10 countries. I didn't realized it was so populated.

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  3. Just incredible! SOmething to poder today! xxx

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  4. Sorry I haven't popped by lately...big project in the works right now, and spare time is in short supply!

    Interesting question, and something my husband and I were discussing the other day. I tend to be the sort who is rather concerned about the implications of population growth, as sometimes I wonder how many more people the earth can support, but then I have to take a step back and remind myself that it is all in God's hands. I don't personally have a problem with family planning (obviously!), and I do think those resources should be available to more people, but then again, I also think that if people want to have more children, then that is their choice. What frustrates me most, though, are the families that have more children then they can care for and support....but that's a different topic.

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