I have previously shown some population stats on this blog and I must admit they continue to fascinate me. I recently made the following charts which I have drawn from material on the U.S. Census Bureau website.
World Vital Events Per Time Unit: 2011
Overall Population, mid-year 2011 = 6,913,281,066
As I have shown before there is a dramatic rise in population every year because births are far greater than deaths.
Or, in much greater detail:
| Time unit | Births | Deaths | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 132,697,074 | 56,260,324 | 76,436,750 |
| Month | 11,058,090 | 4,688,360 | 6,369,729 |
| Day | 363,554 | 154,138 | 209,416 |
| Hour | 15,148 | 6,422 | 8,726 |
| Minute | 252 | 107 | 145 |
| Second | 4.2 | 1.8 | 2.4 |
Here is a graph showing how quickly population is growing, note that it should hit 7 billion early next year:
Biggest Populations by Country
The five biggest countries constitute almost half of the world’s population
According to projections India will overtake China as the most populace country by 2025, and will be way out in front in 2050.
Or, in much greater detail:
| Rank | Country | Population | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 1,336,718,015 | 19.34% |
| 2 | India | 1,189,172,906 | 17.20% |
| 3 | United States | 313,232,044 | 4.53% |
| 4 | Indonesia | 245,613,043 | 2.94% |
| 5 | Brazil | 203,429,773 | 2.71% |
| 6 | Pakistan | 187,342,721 | 2.29% |
| 7 | Bangladesh | 158,570,535 | 2.25% |
| 8 | Nigeria | 155,215,573 | 19.34% |
| 9 | Russia | 138,739,892 | 2.01% |
| 10 | Japan | 126,475,664 | 1.83% |
World Midyear Population by Age and Sex for 2011
Two interesting things to note here: one, the younger the section the higher the population (with only one or two exceptions); and two, the predominance of men over women up until the age of 50 after which it dramatically declines: it seems women were designed to last longer.
| Age | Male | Female | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-4 | 322,608,024 | 301,697,577 | 106.9 |
| 5-9 | 311,773,325 | 290,422,870 | 107.4 |
| 10-14 | 307,702,689 | 286,704,031 | 107.3 |
| 15-19 | 307,558,951 | 289,065,134 | 106.4 |
| 20-24 | 308,713,058 | 294,487,829 | 104.8 |
| 25-29 | 283,637,343 | 273,675,082 | 103.6 |
| 30-34 | 258,789,067 | 250,171,454 | 103.4 |
| 35-39 | 249,005,893 | 241,917,699 | 102.9 |
| 40-44 | 237,442,661 | 232,020,138 | 102.3 |
| 45-49 | 212,945,843 | 212,611,476 | 100.2 |
| 50-54 | 173,142,135 | 176,332,850 | 98.2 |
| 55-59 | 153,431,521 | 159,478,408 | 96.2 |
| 60-64 | 120,438,982 | 127,566,313 | 94.4 |
| 65-69 | 86,507,300 | 95,110,212 | 91.0 |
| 70-74 | 67,685,523 | 80,063,892 | 84.5 |
| 75-79 | 45,924,970 | 59,194,582 | 77.6 |
| 80-84 | 26,376,582 | 39,385,631 | 67.0 |
| 85-89 | 10,946,182 | 20,533,878 | 53.3 |
| 90-94 | 3,015,403 | 7,238,261 | 41.7 |
| 95-99 | 588,656 | 1,897,868 | 31.0 |
| 100 + | 75,243 | 313,717 | 24.0 |
It’s always interesting – and shocking – to look at population statistics. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the cornerstones of our ecological crisis is over-population (or, more precisely, over-shooting the ecological carrying capacity of the planet). However, it is very misleading to look only at population numbers. Per capita impact is far more important, at least in the short term. Americans, for example, on average, consume approx. 25% of all resources, yet comprise only about 4.5% of the world population. This means that the ecological “footprint” of an average American is a couple orders of magnitude greater than that of an individual living at the bottom of the economic ladder in India, China, Mexico, etc. This has to be included in any discussion of population relief (as if that will ever happen!).
Thanks for the interesting website.
Steve