The human population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine of 1315-17 and the Black Death in 1350, when it was about 370 million. The highest rates of population growth, for example, global growth of over 1.8% per year occurred between 1955 and 1975, reaching 2.06% between 1965 and 1970. The human population growth rate declined to 1.18% between 2010 and 2015 and is projected to decline even more over the 21st century. But more on that below.
Human population: definition and properties
This word is synonymous with the concept of "the population of the Earth". Simply put, this is the number of representatives of the species homo sapiens sapiens living on our planet. The number of us with you. That is, the development of a human population, for example, means an increase in the number, birth rate and other indicators that affect the fate of our species.
The main property of a population is its variability. It depends on various factors suchlike mortality, fertility, condition difference, etc. (the reader will learn about all this below). It is also affected by various human activities that reduce the number of populations.
Views
Population is a very broad concept. What types of human population can we distinguish? The main ones are:
- population by region;
- population by country.
This is basically everything you need to know about the population of the planet in terms of population estimation. Various important parameters include average age, fertility, general immunity of the population and other global characteristics mentioned in the current article.
Mortality and mean age
Total in the late 1980s, the highest annual birth rate was about 139 million, and as of 2011 is expected to remain essentially constant at 135 million, while the number of deaths would be 56 million per year and is expected to increase further to 80 million per year by 2040. In 2018, the median age of the world population was 30.4 years. This means that the human population is going through a hard time. Population aging and gradual extinction is a worldwide global problem.
Human population by region
Six of the Earth's seven continents are permanently inhabited on a large scale. Asia is the most populous region, with a population of 4.54 billion, representing 60% of the world's human population. The two most populous countries in the world - China and India - account for about 36%world population.
Africa is the second most populous continent, home to about 1.28 billion people, or 16 percent of the world's population. In 2018, 742 million people in Europe made up, according to sociologists and demographers, 10% of the world's population, while in the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean, about 651 million people (9%) live. North America, mostly made up of the United States and Canada, has about 363 million (5%), while Oceania, the least populated area, has about 41 million inhabitants (0.5%). Despite the fact that there is no permanent fixed human population in Antarctica, a group of people representing scientists and researchers still lives there. This population tends to increase during the summer months and decrease significantly during the winter as researchers return to their home countries during this time.
History
The calculation of the world's population is, by its very nature, a modern achievement. However, early estimates of the human population date back to the 17th century: William Petty in 1682 estimated the world's population at 320 million (modern figures are approaching double the number). By the end of the 18th century, it was about one billion. Deeper estimates, broken down by continents, were published in the first half of the 19th century at 600-1000 million in the early 1800s and 800-1000 million in the 1840s.
Estimates of world population at the time when agriculture first appeared (approximately 10,000 BC) gave us numbers from 1 to15 million. According to modern data of human population growth, about 50-60 million people lived in the united eastern and western Roman Empire as early as the 4th century AD.
Great extinctions
The Plague of Justinian, which first emerged during the reign of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor of the same name, caused the population of Europe to decline by about 50% between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. In 1340, the population of Europe was over 70 million.
The 14th century Black Death pandemic may have reduced the human population from about 450 million in 1340 to 350 million in 1400. It was a huge extinction, which almost ended in a global catastrophe and the death of mankind. It took 200 years to restore the ideal human population that existed before in conditions of limited resources. China's population decreased from 123 million in 1200 to 65 million in 1393, presumably due to a combination of Mongol invasions, famine and plague.
First population registers
Starting from the 2nd year, the Han Dynasty kept consecutive family registers in order to correctly assess the income tax and labor duties of each household. This year, the population of the Western District of the State of Han was recorded as 57,671,400 people in 12,366,470 households, decreasing to 47,566,772 people in 9,348,227 households by 146 CE. e., towards the end of the Han reign. At the accession of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, the population of China was about 60 million; by the endreign in 1644 the number may have approached 150 million.
The role of crops and provisions
The population of England reached a modern estimate of 5.6 million in 1650, up from 2.6 million in 1500. It is believed that the new cultures that were brought to Asia and Europe from the Americas by Portuguese and Spanish colonists in the 16th century contributed to the population growth. Since their introduction to Africa, maize and cassava have similarly replaced traditional African plant species as the continent's most important staple food crops.
Great geographical discoveries
The pre-Columbian North American population probably numbered between 2 and 18 million. The encounter between European explorers and the local population often resulted in local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. According to the boldest scientific claims, 90% of the New World Native American population died due to Old World diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza. Over the centuries, Europeans have developed a high level of immunity to these diseases while indigenous peoples have not.
Increase in life expectancy
During the European agricultural and industrial revolutions, life expectancy for children increased dramatically. The percentage of children born in London who died before the age of five fell from 74.5% in 1730-1749 to 31.8% in 1810-1829. Between 1700 and 1900 the population of Europeincreased from about 100 to over 400 million. In total, areas inhabited by people of European ancestry accounted for 36% of the world's population in 1900.
Vaccination and better living conditions
Population growth in the West has become more rapid with the introduction of vaccination and other improvements in medicine and sanitation. Improved material conditions caused the population of England to rise from 10 million to 40 million in the 19th century. The population of the United Kingdom reached 60 million in 2006.
Russian Empire and USSR
The first half of the 20th century in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union was marked by a series of major wars, famines and other disasters that led to large-scale losses among the population (about 60 million deaths). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's population has declined significantly, from 150 million in 1991 to 143 million in 2012, but by 2013 that decline appears to have stopped.
XX century
Many countries in the developing world have experienced extremely rapid population growth since the early 20th century due to economic development and improved public he alth. China's population has grown from about 430 million in 1850 to 580 million in 1953 and is now over 1.3 billion.
The population of the Indian subcontinent, which was about 125 million in 1750, increased to 389 million in 1941. Today, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh combine about 1.63 billionHuman. In 1815 Java had about 5 million inhabitants; its current successor, Indonesia, now has over 140 million people.
In just one hundred years, Brazil's population increased from about 17 million in 1900 to 176 million in 2000, or almost 3% of the world's population at the very beginning of the 21st century. The population of Mexico has increased from 13.6 million in 1900 to 112 million in 2010. Between the 1920s and the 2000s, Kenya's population increased from 2.9 million to 37 million.
From millions to billions
According to various estimates, the world's population for the first time reached one billion in 1804. Another 123 years before it reached two billion in 1927. In 1960, it took only 33 years to reach three billion. After that, the world population crossed the mark of 4 billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, according to the US Census Bureau, was seven billion in March 2012.
Forecasts
According to current projections, the world population will reach eight billion by 2024 and is likely to continue to grow despite the global increase in average age and natural mortality.
Alternative scenarios for 2050 range from a low of 7.4 billion to over 10.6 billion. The predicted numbers vary depending on the underlying statistical assumptions and the variables used in the projection calculations, especially the fertility variable. Long-term forecasts up to 2150 range from declinepopulation to 3.2 billion in the "low scenario", to "high scenarios" 24.8 billion. One extreme scenario predicted a massive increase to 256 billion by 2150, assuming that the global fertility rate would remain 1995 at 3.04 children per woman; however, by 2010, the world birth rate had dropped to 2.52.
Exact calculation
There is no estimate of the exact day or month when the world's population exceeded one or two billion. The points at which it reached three and four billion were not officially recorded, but the United States Census Bureau's International Database placed them in July 1959 and April 1974, respectively. The United Nations designated and celebrated "5 Billion Day" on July 11, 1987 and "6 Billion Day" on October 12, 1999.
Sex ratio and median age
As of 2012, the global sex ratio is approximately 1.01 males to 1 female. The larger number of men is possibly due to the significant gender imbalances that are evident in the Indian and Chinese populations. Approximately 26.3% of the world population is represented by people under the age of 15, and 65.9% - in 15-64 years and 7.9% - 65 and older. The median age of the world's population was 29.7 in 2014 and is still expected to rise to 37.9 by 2050.
What else can be said about the properties of the human population? According to the World He alth Organization, the average life expectancy in the worldis 71.4 years as of 2015, with women living to an average of 74 and men to 69. In 2010, the total fertility rate was estimated at 2.52 children per woman. In June 2012, British researchers calculated the total weight of the world's population at about 287 million tons, with the average person weighing about 62 kilograms (137 pounds).
The role of economic development
Gross world product in 2013 was estimated at $74.31 trillion. USD, bringing the annual global per capita figure to around USD 10,500. About 1.29 billion people (18.4% of the world's population) live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day, of which about 870 million people (12.25%) are undernourished.
83% of people over the age of 15 in the world are considered literate. In June 2014, there were about 3.03 billion global Internet users, representing 42.3% of the global population.
Language and religion
The Han Chinese are the world's largest ethnic group, accounting for over 19% of the global population in 2011. The most widely spoken languages in the world are Chinese (spoken by 12.44% of people), Spanish (4.85%), English (4.83%), Arabic (3.25%) and Hindi (2.68%).
The most common religion in the world is Christianity, whose adherents make up 31% of the world's population. Islam is the second largest religion, accounting for 24.1%, while Hinduism is in third place, whichis 13.78%. In 2005, about 16% of the world's population were non-religious.
Various factors
The number of people fluctuates in different regions at different rates. Nevertheless, growth is a long-standing trend on all inhabited continents, as well as in most individual states. During the 20th century, the world's population experienced the largest increase in known history, rising from 1.6 billion in 1900 to over 6 billion in 2000. A number of factors contributed to this growth, including a reduction in mortality rates in many countries through improved sanitation and medical advances, as well as the significant increase in agricultural productivity associated with the Green Revolution.
In 2000, the United Nations estimated that the world's population had grown at an annual rate of 1.14% (equivalent to about 75 million people), from 1989 to 88 million a year. There were ten times as many people on earth in 2000 as there were in 1700. Globally, population growth rates have steadily declined from their peak of 2.19% in 1963, but in Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa Sahara growth remains strong.
White people are fading away
During the 2010s, Japan and parts of Europe began to experience negative population growth (i.e., a net decline in population over time) due to declining fertility levels in the face of unnatural replacement of indigenous populations by migrants.
In 2006The United Nations has stated that the rate of population growth is markedly slowing down due to the ongoing global demographic transition. If this trend continues, the growth rate could drop to zero by 2050, and the human population will freeze at around 9.2 billion. However, this is only one of many versions published by the UN. Such estimates often depend on the species of the human population.
An alternative scenario comes from statistician Jørgen Randers, who argues that traditional projections do not adequately take into account the downward impact of global urbanization on fertility. Most likely, the Randers scenario shows a peak in world population in the early 2040s at about 8.1 billion people, after which there will be a global decline. Adrian Raftery, professor of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington, says there is a 70% chance that world population will not stabilize this century, which remains a very important issue.
Long-term forecasts
Long-term global population growth is hard to predict. The United Nations Division and the US Census Bureau give different estimates: according to the UN, the world population reached seven billion at the end of 2011, while the USCB claims that this happened only in March 2012.
The UN has released several projections of the future world population based on different assumptions. Between 2000 and 2005, the organization revised these projections successively, up to 2006, and also gave an average estimate of the 2050 population of 273 million. With suchastronomical calculations are quite difficult to isolate the concept of an ideal human population.
Differences between countries
Average global fertility rates are declining rapidly, but differ significantly between developed countries (where fertility rates are often below replacement rates) and developing countries (where fertility rates typically remain high). Different ethnic groups also show different birth rates. Mortality rates can change rapidly due to disease epidemics, wars, and other massive disasters or advances in medicine. Wars and genocide, however, are prime examples of human activities that reduce populations.
