World Statistics and Facts: World Population.

World Population

The world population is the total number of humans alive on the planet Earth at a given time. According to estimates published by the United States Census Bureau, the world population in June 2005 was ~6,450,000,000[1]. In line with population projections, this figure continues to grow at rates that are unprecedented prior to the 20th century. Approximately one fifth of all humans in the last six thousand years are currently alive. By some estimates, there are now one billion (thousand million) young people in the world between the ages of 15 and 24.

The United Nations Population Fund designated October 12, 1999 as the approximate day on which world population reached six billion. This was about 12 years after world population reached five billion, in 1987. The child that has been proclaimed by the United Nations Population Fund and welcomed by the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the six billionth baby, was born on the designated day two minutes after midnight, not in India or China, as might be expected, but to Fatima Nevic and her husband Jasminko in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

The last 70 years of the 20th century saw the biggest increase in the world's population in human history. The following table shows when each billion milestone was met:

* 1 billion reached in 1802.
* 2 billion reached in 1927.
* 3 billion reached in 1961.
* 4 billion reached in 1974.
* 5 billion reached in 1987.
* 6 billion reached in 1999.

From the figures above, the world's population has tripled in 72 years, and doubled in 38 years up to the year of 1999.

The UN estimated in 2000 that the world's population was then growing at the rate of 1.2 percent (or 77 million people) per year. This represents a decrease in the growth rate from its level in 1990, mostly due to decreasing birth rates.

As of 2004, the world's population is increasing at a rate of 75 million people per year.

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