Globally, about 25 percent of the population is under 15 years of age and 10 percent is over 65 years of age. Africa has the youngest population worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 40 percent of the population is below 15 years, and only three percent are above 65, indicating the low life expectancy in several of the countries. In Europe, on the other hand, a higher share of the population is above 65 years than the population under 15 years. Fertility rates The high share of children and youth in Africa is connected to the high fertility rates on the continent. For instance, South Sudan and Niger have the highest population growth rates globally. However, about 50 percent of the world’s population live in countries with low fertility, where women have less than 2.1 children. Some countries in Europe, like Latvia and Lithuania, have experienced a population decline of one percent, and in the Cook Islands, it is even above two percent. In Europe, the majority of the population was previously working-aged adults with few dependents, but this trend is expected to reverse soon, and it is predicted that by 2050, the older population will outnumber the young in many developed countries. Growing global population As of 2025, there are 8.1 billion people living on the planet, and this is expected to reach more than nine billion before 2040. Moreover, the global population is expected to reach 10 billions around 2060, before slowing and then even falling slightly by 2100. As the population growth rates indicate, a significant share of the population increase will happen in Africa.

The world population surpassed eight billion people in 2022, having doubled from its figure less than 50 years previously. Looking forward, it is projected that the world population will reach nine billion in 2038, and 10 billion in 2060, but it will peak around 10.3 billion in the 2080s before it then goes into decline. Regional variations The global population has seen rapid growth since the early 1800s, due to advances in areas such as food production, healthcare, water safety, education, and infrastructure, however, these changes did not occur at a uniform time or pace across the world. Broadly speaking, the first regions to undergo their demographic transitions were Europe, North America, and Oceania, followed by Latin America and Asia (although Asia's development saw the greatest variation due to its size), while Africa was the last continent to undergo this transformation. Because of these differences, many so-called "advanced" countries are now experiencing population decline, particularly in Europe and East Asia, while the fastest population growth rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, the roughly two billion difference in population between now and the 2080s' peak will be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, which will rise from 1.2 billion to 3.2 billion in this time (although populations in other continents will also fluctuate). Changing projections The United Nations releases their World Population Prospects report every 1-2 years, and this is widely considered the foremost demographic dataset in the world. However, recent years have seen a notable decline in projections when the global population will peak, and at what number. Previous reports in the 2010s had suggested a peak of over 11 billion people, and that population growth would continue into the 2100s, however a sooner and shorter peak is now projected. Reasons for this include a more rapid population decline in East Asia and Europe, particularly China, as well as a prolongued development arc in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The average for 2023 based on 196 countries was 0.51 percent. The highest value was in India: 17.91 percent and the lowest value was in Andorra: 0 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

There are approximately 8.16 billion people living in the world today, a figure that shows a dramatic increase since the beginning of the Common Era. Since the 1970s, the global population has also more than doubled in size. It is estimated that the world's population will reach and surpass 10 billion people by 2060 and plateau at around 10.3 billion in the 2080s, before it then begins to fall. Asia When it comes to number of inhabitants per continent, Asia is the most populous continent in the world by a significant margin, with roughly 60 percent of the world's population living there. Similar to other global regions, a quarter of inhabitants in Asia are under 15 years of age. The most populous nations in the world are India and China respectively; each inhabit more than three times the amount of people than the third-ranked United States. 10 of the 20 most populous countries in the world are found in Asia. Africa Interestingly, the top 20 countries with highest population growth rate are mainly countries in Africa. This is due to the present stage of Sub-Saharan Africa's demographic transition, where mortality rates are falling significantly, although fertility rates are yet to drop and match this. As much of Asia is nearing the end of its demographic transition, population growth is predicted to be much slower in this century than in the previous; in contrast, Africa's population is expected to reach almost four billion by the year 2100. Unlike demographic transitions in other continents, Africa's population development is being influenced by climate change on a scale unseen by most other global regions. Rising temperatures are exacerbating challenges such as poor sanitation, lack of infrastructure, and political instability, which have historically hindered societal progress. It remains to be seen how Africa and the world at large adapts to this crisis as it continues to cause drought, desertification, natural disasters, and climate migration across the region.

In 2022, India overtook China as the world's most populous country and now has almost 1.46 billion people. China now has the second-largest population in the world, still with just over 1.4 billion inhabitants, however, its population went into decline in 2023. Global population As of 2025, the world's population stands at almost 8.2 billion people and is expected to reach around 10.3 billion people in the 2080s, when it will then go into decline. Due to improved healthcare, sanitation, and general living conditions, the global population continues to increase; mortality rates (particularly among infants and children) are decreasing and the median age of the world population has steadily increased for decades. As for the average life expectancy in industrial and developing countries, the gap has narrowed significantly since the mid-20th century. Asia is the most populous continent on Earth; 11 of the 20 largest countries are located there. It leads the ranking of the global population by continent by far, reporting four times as many inhabitants as Africa. The Demographic Transition The population explosion over the past two centuries is part of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition. Simply put, this transition results from a drastic reduction in mortality, which then leads to a reduction in fertility, and increase in life expectancy; this interim period where death rates are low and birth rates are high is where this population explosion occurs, and population growth can remain high as the population ages. In today's most-developed countries, the transition generally began with industrialization in the 1800s, and growth has now stabilized as birth and mortality rates have re-balanced. Across less-developed countries, the stage of this transition varies; for example, China is at a later stage than India, which accounts for the change in which country is more populous - understanding the demographic transition can help understand the reason why China's population is now going into decline. The least-developed region is Sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility rates remain close to pre-industrial levels in some countries. As these countries transition, they will undergo significant rates of population growth

The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, and reach eight billion in 2023, and will peak at almost 11 billion by the end of the century. Although it took thousands of years to reach one billion people, it did so at the beginning of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition; from this point onwards, population growth has skyrocketed, and since the 1960s the population has increased by one billion people every 12 to 15 years. The demographic transition sees a sharp drop in mortality due to factors such as vaccination, sanitation, and improved food supply; the population boom that follows is due to increased survival rates among children and higher life expectancy among the general population; and fertility then drops in response to this population growth. Regional differences The demographic transition is a global phenomenon, but it has taken place at different times across the world. The industrialized countries of Europe and North America were the first to go through this process, followed by some states in the Western Pacific. Latin America's population then began growing at the turn of the 20th century, but the most significant period of global population growth occurred as Asia progressed in the late-1900s. As of the early 21st century, almost two thirds of the world's population live in Asia, although this is set to change significantly in the coming decades. Future growth The growth of Africa's population, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will have the largest impact on global demographics in this century. From 2000 to 2100, it is expected that Africa's population will have increased by a factor of almost five. It overtook Europe in size in the late 1990s, and overtook the Americas a decade later. In contrast to Africa, Europe's population is now in decline, as birth rates are consistently below death rates in many countries, especially in the south and east, resulting in natural population decline. Similarly, the population of the Americas and Asia are expected to go into decline in the second half of this century, and only Oceania's population will still be growing alongside Africa. By 2100, the world's population will have over three billion more than today, with the vast majority of this concentrated in Africa. Demographers predict that climate change is exacerbating many of the challenges that currently hinder progress in Africa, such as political and food instability; if Africa's transition is prolonged, then it may result in further population growth that would place a strain on the region's resources, however, curbing this growth earlier would alleviate some of the pressure created by climate change.

As a source of animal and plant population data, the Global Population Dynamics Database (GPDD) is unrivalled. Nearly five thousand separate time series are available here. In addition to all the population counts, there are taxonomic details of over 1400 species. The type of data contained in the GPDD varies enormously, from annual counts of mammals or birds at individual sampling sites, to weekly counts of zooplankton and other marine fauna. The project commenced in October 1994, following discussions on ways in which the collaborating partners could make a practical and enduring contribution to research into population dynamics. A small team was assembled and, with assistance and advice from numerous interested parties we decided to construct the database using the popular Microsoft Access platform. After an initial design phase, the major task has been that of locating, extracting, entering and validating the data in all the various tables. Now, nearly 5000 individual datasets have been entered onto the GPDD. The Global Population Dynamics Database comprises six Tables of data and information. The tables are linked to each other as shown in the diagram shown in figure 3 of the GPDD User Guide (GPDD-User-Guide.pdf). Referential integrity is maintained through record ID numbers which are held, along with other information in the Main Table. It's structure obeys all the rules of a standard relational database.

The Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Basic Demographic Characteristics, Revision 10 consists of estimates of human population by age and sex as counts (number of persons per pixel) and densities (number of persons per square kilometer), consistent with national censuses and population registers, for the year 2010. To estimate the male and female populations by age in 2010, the proportions of males and females in each 5-year age group from ages 0-4 to ages 85+ for the given census year were calculated. These proportions were then applied to the 2010 estimates of the total population to obtain 2010 estimates of male and female populations by age. In some cases, the spatial resolution of the age and sex proportions was coarser than the resolution of the total population estimates to which they were applied. The population density rasters were created by dividing the population count rasters by the land area raster. The data files were produced as global rasters at 30 arc-second (~1 km at the equator) resolution. To enable faster global processing, and in support of research communities, the 30 arc-second data were aggregated to 2.5 arc-minute, 15 arc-minute, 30 arc-minute and 1 degree resolutions.

Between 1800 and 2021, the total population of each continent experienced consistent growth, however as growth rates varied by region, population distribution has fluctuated. In the early 19th century, almost 70 percent of the world's population lived in Asia, while fewer than 10 percent lived in Africa. By the end of this century, it is believed that Asia's share will fall to roughly 45 percent, while Africa's will be on course to reach 40 percent. 19th and 20th centuries Fewer than 2.5 percent of the world's population lived in the Americas in 1800, however the demographic transition, along with waves of migration, would see this share rise to almost 10 percent a century later, peaking at almost 14 percent in the 1960s. Europe's share of the global population also grew in the 19th century, to roughly a quarter in 1900, but fell thereafter and saw the largest relative decline during the 20th century. Asia, which has consistently been the world's most populous continent, saw its population share drop by the mid-1900s, but it has been around 60 percent since the 1970s. It is important to note that the world population has grown from approximately one to eight billion people between 1800 and the 2020s, and that declines in population distribution before 2020 have resulted from different growth rates across the continents. 21st century Africa's population share remained fairly constant throughout this time, fluctuating between 7.5 and 10 percent until the late-1900s, but it is set to see the largest change over the 21st century. As Europe's total population is now falling, and it is estimated that the total populations of Asia and the Americas will fall by the 2050s and 2070s respectively, rapid population growth in Africa will see a significant shift in population distribution. Africa's population is predicted to grow from 1.3 to 3.9 billion people over the next eight decades, and its share of the total population will rise to almost 40 percent. The only other continent whose population will still be growing at this time will be Oceania, although its share of the total population has never been more than 0.7 percent.

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

Author: Joseph Kerski, post_secondary_educator, Esri and University of DenverGrade/Audience: high school, ap human geography, post secondary, professional developmentResource type: lessonSubject topic(s): population, maps, citiesRegion: africa, asia, australia oceania, europe, north america, south america, united states, worldStandards: All APHG population tenets. Geography for Life cultural and population geography standards. Objectives: 1. Understand how population change and demographic characteristics are evident at a variety of scales in a variety of places around the world. 2. Understand the whys of where through analysis of change over space and time. 3. Develop skills using spatial data and interactive maps. 4. Understand how population data is communicated using 2D and 3D maps, visualizations, and symbology. Summary: Teaching and learning about demographics and population change in an effective, engaging manner is enriched and enlivened through the use of web mapping tools and spatial data. These tools, enabled by the advent of cloud-based geographic information systems (GIS) technology, bring problem solving, critical thinking, and spatial analysis to every classroom instructor and student (Kerski 2003; Jo, Hong, and Verma 2016).

United States US: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data was reported at 6.249 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 6.258 % for 2016. United States US: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data is updated yearly, averaging 7.054 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 9.665 % in 1969 and a record low of 6.249 % in 2017. United States US: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Female population between the ages 10 to 14 as a percentage of the total female population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; ;

The Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Count, Revision 10 consists of estimates of human population (number of persons per pixel), consistent with national censuses and population registers, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing approximately 13.5 million national and sub-national administrative units, was used to assign population counts to 30 arc-second grid cells. The data files were produced as global rasters at 30 arc-second (~1 km at the equator) resolution. To enable faster global processing, and in support of research communities, the 30 arc-second data were aggregated to 2.5 arc-minute, 15 arc-minute, 30 arc-minute and 1 degree resolutions.

Percentage of national population aged 10-19 in region

The Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 10 consists of estimates of human population density (number of persons per square kilometer) based on counts consistent with national censuses and population registers, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing approximately 13.5 million national and sub-national administrative units, was used to assign population counts to 30 arc-second grid cells. The population density rasters were created by dividing the population count raster for a given target year by the land area raster. The data files were produced as global rasters at 30 arc-second (~1 km at the equator) resolution. To enable faster global processing, and in support of research communities, the 30 arc-second count data were aggregated to 2.5 arc-minute, 15 arc-minute, 30 arc-minute and 1 degree resolutions to produce density rasters at these resolutions.

Honduras HN: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data was reported at 11.094 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 11.327 % for 2016. Honduras HN: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data is updated yearly, averaging 13.025 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 13.434 % in 1991 and a record low of 11.094 % in 2017. Honduras HN: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Honduras – Table HN.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Male population between the ages 10 to 14 as a percentage of the total male population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; ;

The Global Human Settlement Layer: Population and Built-Up Estimates, and Degree of Urbanization Settlement Model Grid data set provides gridded data on human population (GHS-POP), built-up area (GHS-BUILT), and degree of urbanization (GHS-SMOD) across four time periods: 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2014 (BUILT) or 2015 (POP, SMOD). GHS-BUILT describes the percent built-up area for each 30 arc-second grid cell (approximately 1 km at the equator) based on Landsat imagery from each of the four time periods. GHS-POP consists of census data from the 2010 round of global census from Gridded Population of the World, Version 4, Revision 10 (GPWv4.10) spatially-allocated within census Units based on the percent built-up areas from GHS-BUILT. GHS-SMOD uses GHS-BUILT and GHS-POP in order to develop a standardized classification of degree of urbanization grid. The original data from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC-EC) has been combined into a single data package in GeoTIFF format and reprojected from Mollweide Equal Area into WGS84 at 9 arc-second and 30 arc-second horizontal resolutions in order to support integration with a variety of global raster data sets.

Before 2025, the world's total population is expected to reach eight billion. Furthermore, it is predicted to reach over 10 billion in 2060, before slowing again as global birth rates are expected to decrease. Moreover, it is still unclear to what extent global warming will have an impact on population development. A high share of the population increase is expected to happen on the African continent.

Vietnam VN: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data was reported at 6.793 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 6.777 % for 2016. Vietnam VN: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data is updated yearly, averaging 10.930 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 12.558 % in 1972 and a record low of 6.777 % in 2016. Vietnam VN: Population: Female: Ages 10-14: % of Female Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Vietnam – Table VN.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Female population between the ages 10 to 14 as a percentage of the total female population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; ;

United States US: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data was reported at 6.662 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 6.677 % for 2016. United States US: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data is updated yearly, averaging 7.656 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.417 % in 1970 and a record low of 6.662 % in 2017. United States US: Population: Male: Ages 10-14: % of Male Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Male population between the ages 10 to 14 as a percentage of the total male population.; ; World Bank staff estimates based on age/sex distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision.; ;