We are all aware, or should be, of the constant growth in the population of our planet. Earth isn’t getting any bigger and yet humanity keeps expanding. Taking a look at Worldometers.info is a fascinating and slightly disturbing experience.
The site offers real-time population numbers and watching those numbers tick up second-by-second gives you a real feel for how fast the population is expanding. At the time of writing (25th June 2009), the population was 6,775,363,712 and it may well be an informative exercise for you to visit the site and see how that number has grown in the interim.
Comparing the figures for daily births and deaths is another angle on the population issue. On the same date as above there were 66,931,920 (and counting) births and 29,244,686 (and counting) deaths. It doesn’t take much of a mathematician to work out that there are far more births than deaths and we have a limited amount of suitable environments for humanity to live in.
There are many other statistics counting away on the site and it is worth looking at them to give yourself a real-time idea of exactly what is going on in the world, for example in loss of rainforests, people without access to water and the energy consumed by us all.
Geohive is another fascinating site if you are researching population figures. On the main page you can compare some of the countries which currently have the largest populations. Taking China as an example, we can see that in 1950 the population of China was 562,579,779. By today that number had grown to 1,338,273,001 (and rising of course) but there is greater interest in the projected population numbers for 2050. By that date it is estimated that China’s population will be around 1,424,161,948, which clearly indicates a projected slowdown in population growth.
According to this site, the smallest population belongs to the tiny Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific with a population of just 48 souls. The top three populations by continent are currently Asia (around 60%), Africa (around 14%) and Europe (around 10%).
Shanghai is at the top of the list, when the figures are broken down by city, with approximately 17,420,000 people. However, looking at this by urban agglomeration (meaning that it takes into account outlying areas such as suburbs and satellite villages), Tokyo is by far the largest city population at an estimated 33,800,000, by 2008 figures. Close behind come Seoul, South Korea with 23,900,000 and Mexico City, Mexico at 22,900,000.
There are thousands of facts and figures available about the population of our planet but sitting in front of your computer and watching that population ticker flick up once a second is a sobering thought. These aren’t just numbers but people who will add to the drain on our planet and eventually lead to worse shortages than we have already seen. It is to be hoped that humanity will get a grip on this population problem before it is too late.
