World population

World population - is the total number of humans currently living in the World. As of today, the total population of the world is around 7.86 billion people. The first billion was reached around 1800 and in just 200 years we reached 7 billion.

According to Population Division of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs , these are the main milestones:

• 1 billion - 1804
• 2 billion - 1927 (in 123 years)
• 3 billion - 1960 (in 33 years)
• 4 billion - 1974 (in 14 years)
• 5 billion - 1987 (in 13 years)
• 6 billion - October 12, 1999 (in 12 years)
• 7 billion - October 31, 2011 (in 12 years)

World population is expected to reach 8 billion people in 2023 according to our estimates.

Currently, the world population is increasing by more than 90 million per year.
The Global sex ratio is 1.018. It means that we have slightly more men then women. The median age of the world's population is estimated to be 31 years in 2020 (30.3 and 31.8 for male and female accordingly) .

More than 70% of the world population live in 20 most populous countries of the world. There are just 2 countries in the world with a population more than 1 billion people: China and India. About 36 % of the World population live just in these two countries. Despite the fact that China is curently the most populous country in the world, India's population growths much faster. And in 2023 India is expected to become the most populous country in the world.

More than half of the world's population identify with a religious group. The biggest groups are: Christianity (32%) and Islam (24%).

Top 20 most populous countries (25-01-2021)

1		China	1,444,471,490	18.38%
2		India	1,391,688,523	17.71%
3		United States of America (USA)	332,688,911	4.23%
4		Indonesia	275,791,288	3.51%
5		Pakistan	223,649,596	2.85%
6		Brazil	213,863,937	2.72%
7		Nigeria	209,361,338	2.66%
8		Bangladesh	165,969,589	2.11%
9		Russian Federation	145,967,285	1.86%
10		Mexico	130,129,363	1.66%
11		Japan	126,508,047	1.61%
12		Ethiopia	116,594,963	1.48%
13		Philippines	110,688,767	1.41%
14		Egypt	103,726,983	1.32%
15		Vietnam	98,060,213	1.25%
16		Democratic Republic of the Congo	91,162,950	1.16%
17		Turkey	85,393,927	1.09%
18		Iran	84,583,281	1.08%
19		Germany	83,707,392	1.07%
20		Thailand	69,993,421	0.89%

This list includes 20 most populous countries in the World. Approximately 5.50 billion people live in these twenty countries, or around 70% of the world's population.

See also: Full List of countries and dependent territories of the World by population

World population 2021

The population of the world is projected to increase by 96,954,663 people in 2021 and reach 7,948,118,519 in the end of the year. The natural increase is expected to be positive, as the number of births will exceed the number of deaths by 96,617,035.

Population change rates in 2021

According to our estimations, daily change rates of world population in 2021 will be the following:

• 433,382 live births average per day (18,057.58 in an hour)
• 168,678 deaths average per day (7,028.23 in an hour)

The population of World will be increasing by 265,629 persons daily in 2021.

Demographics of the World 2020

As of 1 January 2021, the population of the world was estimated to be 7,851,163,856. This is an increase of 1.23 % (95,122,853 people) compared to population of 7,756,041,003 the year before. In 2020 the natural increase was positive, as the number of births exceeded the number of deaths by 94,859,658.

Below are the key figures for the world population in 2020:

• 155,676,622 live births
• 60,816,965 deaths
• 3,961,345,487 males as of 31 December 2020
• 3,889,818,369 females as of 31 December 2020
• 4,239,628,482 people live in urban areas (54 % of total world population)
• 3,611,535,374 people live in rural areas (46 % of total world population)

World population density

The world population density is 57.7 people per square kilometer (149.4 per mi²) as of January 2021. This number is calculated using 7,851,163,856 people as the world population and 136,120,354 km² (52,556,368 mi²)as Earth's total area. This is the sum of land and water areas within international boundaries and coastlines of all the countries in the world.

Since the Earth's total area is about 510 million square kilometers, the world population density can be calculated in several ways:

• 15.4 people/km² (39.9/mi²) - the Earth's total area (including land and water) is 510,072,000 km² (196,939,921 mi²).
• 52.2 people/km² (135.1/mi²) - the Earth's land area. This includes all continental and island land area as well as Antarctica. The area in that case is 150,461,685 km² (58,093,588 mi²).
• 57.7 people/km² (149.4/mi²) - sum of land and water areas within international boundaries and coastlines of all the countries in the world. The area in that case is 136,120,354 km² (52,556,368 mi²).

See also:

List of countries by surface area and density by United Nations Statistics Division
Map and list of the world by density of population at worldstat.info

Religion of the World

Religion	Number of followers	Percentage of total population
Christianity	2,484,172,183	31.6 %
Islam	1,941,018,638	24.7 %
Religiously Unaffiliated	1,208,013,562	15.4 %
Hinduism	1,168,785,340	14.9 %
Buddhism	522,942,830	6.7 %
Folk or traditional religions	444,574,333	5.7 %
Other	66,737,025	0.9 %
Judaism	14,919,945	0.2 %

Source: Pew Research Center. The Global Religious Landscape .

Number of followers estimated by Countrymeters ( January 1 2021).

Global age structure

As of the beginning of 2021 according to our estimates the world had the following population age distribution:

26.6

64.7

7.5

	- percentage of population under 15
	- percentage of population between 15 and 64 years old
	- percentage of population 65+

In absolute figures (estimate):

• 2,084,569,466 young people under 15 years old ( 1,077,744,528 males / 1,006,828,378 females)
• 5,081,333,771 persons between 15 and 64 years old ( 2,569,398,787 males / 2,511,954,917 females)
• 590,141,646 persons above 64 years old ( 261,787,349 males / 328,342,163 females)

We prepared a simplified model of the population distribution pyramid which is broken down into 3 main age groups. The groups are the same as we used above: population under 15, between 15 and 64 and population which is over 65 year old.

65+

15-64

0-14

male

female

As we can see the World population pyramid has an expanding type. This type of pyramid is common for developing countries with declining fertility rate but still high birth and death rates.

World life expectancy

Life expectancy at birth is one of the most important demographic indicator. It shows the number of years a newborn infant would live assuming that birth and death rates will remain at the same level during the whole lifetime.

According to Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, life expectancy at birth for the world as a whole increased from 65 years in 1990-1995 to 70 years in 2010-2015. Although wide disparities persist such that the average length of life in Africa in 2010-2015, for example, is 12 years shorter than the global average and 21 years shorter than in Northern America - see figure below.

Global literacy

According to our estimates 4,894,412,455 persons or 86.3% of adult population (aged 15 years and above) in the world are able to read and write. Accordingly about 777,070,761 adults are illiterate.

Literacy rate for adult male population is 89.96% (2,546,850,112 persons). 284,336,024 are illiterate.
Literacy rate for adult female population is 82.65% (2,347,562,343 persons). 492,734,737 are illiterate.

Youth literacy rates are 92.81% and 90.13% for males and females accordingly. The overall youth literacy rate is 91.51%. Youth literacy rate definition covers the population between the ages of 15 to 24 years.

Source: The estimation data for section "World population literacy" is based on the latest data published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (retrieved March 13, 2016) .