As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.
Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster
In 2022 world population estimates reached 8 billion; that is 8 thousand million.
Most of the people still live in China, followed by India, the United States of America. Indonesia and Pakistan complete the top 5. The image is expected to change in this century: China is feeling the impact of its one-child-policy and will be overtaken by India in total population numbers, Nigeria will be on third place. The major shift in growing world population will will be from Asia to Africa and Nigeria is expected to be the country with the biggest population in the next century.
Between 2011 and 2022 the biggest absolute growth happened in India (almost 160 Million), followed by China (almost 70 Million), Nigeria (53 Million), Pakistan (37 Million) and Ethiopia (31 Million). The highest growth rate are noted in Jordan (4%), Niger (3.8%), Mayotte (3.6 %), Qatar (3.6%) and Angola (3.4%)
The biggest decline in population has happened in Ukraine (5.8 Million), followed by Japan (4 Million), Italy (almost 1 Million), Venezuela (800.000) and Bulgaria (760.000). Reasons for that vary between war (Ukraine), political crisis (Venezuela) and ageing population (Japan).
