The world's population first reached one billion people in 1805, and reached eight billion in 2022, and will peak at almost 10.2 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 lives 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 few years 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.

About

The 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects is the twenty-eighth edition of official United Nations population estimates and projections that have been prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. It presents population estimates from 1950 to the present for 237 countries or areas, underpinned by analyses of historical demographic trends. This latest assessment considers the results of 1,910 national population censuses conducted between 1950 and 2023, as well as information from vital registration systems and from 3,189 nationally representative sample surveys. The 2024 revision also presents population projections to the year 2100 that reflect a range of plausible outcomes at the global, regional and national levels.

Column Description

• Total Population, as of 1 January (thousands)
• Total Population, as of 1 July (thousands)
• Male Population, as of 1 July (thousands)
• Female Population, as of 1 July (thousands)
• Population Density, as of 1 July (persons per square km) (UPDATED on 14 July 2022)
• Population Sex Ratio, as of 1 July (males per 100 females)
• Median Age, as of 1 July (years)
• Natural Change, Births minus Deaths (thousands)
• Rate of Natural Change (per 1,000 population)
• Population Change (thousands)
• Population Growth Rate (percentage)
• Population Annual Doubling Time (years)
• Births (thousands)
• Births by women aged 15 to 19 (thousands)
• Crude Birth Rate (births per 1,000 population)
• Total Fertility Rate (live births per woman)
• Net Reproduction Rate (surviving daughters per woman)
• Mean Age Childbearing (years)
• Sex Ratio at Birth (males per 100 female births)
• Total Deaths (thousands)
• Male Deaths (thousands)
• Female Deaths (thousands)
• Crude Death Rate (deaths per 1,000 population)
• Life Expectancy at Birth, both sexes (years)
• Male Life Expectancy at Birth (years)
• Female Life Expectancy at Birth (years)
• Life Expectancy at Age 15, both sexes (years)
• Male Life Expectancy at Age 15 (years)
• Female Life Expectancy at Age 15 (years)
• Life Expectancy at Age 65, both sexes (years)
• Male Life Expectancy at Age 65 (years)
• Female Life Expectancy at Age 65 (years)
• Life Expectancy at Age 80, both sexes (years)
• Male Life Expectancy at Age 80 (years)
• Female Life Expectancy at Age 80 (years)
• Infant Deaths, under age 1 (thousands)
• Infant Mortality Rate (infant deaths per 1,000 live births)
• Live Births Surviving to Age 1 (thousands)
• Under-Five Deaths, under age 5 (thousands)
• Under-Five Mortality (deaths under age 5 per 1,000 live births)
• Mortality before Age 40, both sexes (deaths under age 40 per 1,000 live births)
• Male Mortality before Age 40 (deaths under age 40 per 1,000 male live births)
• Female Mortality before Age 40 (deaths under age 40 per 1,000 female live births)
• Mortality before Age 60, both sexes (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 live births)
• Male Mortality before Age 60 (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 male live births)
• Female Mortality before Age 60 (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 female live births)
• Mortality between Age 15 and 50, both sexes (deaths under age 50 per 1,000 alive at age 15)
• Male Mortality between Age 15 and 50 (deaths under age 50 per 1,000 males alive at age 15)
• Female Mortality between Age 15 and 50 (deaths under age 50 per 1,000 females alive at age 15)
• Mortality between Age 15 and 60, both sexes (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 alive at age 15)
• Male Mortality between Age 15 and 60 (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 males alive at age 15)
• Female Mortality between Age 15 and 60 (deaths under age 60 per 1,000 females alive at age 15)
• Net Number of Migrants (thousands)
• Net Migration Rate (per 1,000 population)

Copyright © 2024 by United Nations, made available under a Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0 IGO: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ Suggested citation: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition.

Foto von kazi arifuzzaman auf Unsplash

In the past four centuries, the population of the Thirteen Colonies and United States of America has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 346 million in 2025. While the fertility rate has now dropped well below replacement level, and the population is on track to go into a natural decline in the 2040s, projected high net immigration rates mean the population will continue growing well into the next century, crossing the 400 million mark in the 2070s. Indigenous population Early population figures for the Thirteen Colonies and United States come with certain caveats. Official records excluded the indigenous population, and they generally remained excluded until the late 1800s. In 1500, in the first decade of European colonization of the Americas, the native population living within the modern U.S. borders was believed to be around 1.9 million people. The spread of Old World diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, to biologically defenseless populations in the New World then wreaked havoc across the continent, often wiping out large portions of the population in areas that had not yet made contact with Europeans. By the time of Jamestown's founding in 1607, it is believed the native population within current U.S. borders had dropped by almost 60 percent. As the U.S. expanded, indigenous populations were largely still excluded from population figures as they were driven westward, however taxpaying Natives were included in the census from 1870 to 1890, before all were included thereafter. It should be noted that estimates for indigenous populations in the Americas vary significantly by source and time period. Migration and expansion fuels population growth The arrival of European settlers and African slaves was the key driver of population growth in North America in the 17th century. Settlers from Britain were the dominant group in the Thirteen Colonies, before settlers from elsewhere in Europe, particularly Germany and Ireland, made a large impact in the mid-19th century. By the end of the 19th century, improvements in transport technology and increasing economic opportunities saw migration to the United States increase further, particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and in the first decade of the 1900s the number of migrants to the U.S. exceeded one million people in some years. It is also estimated that almost 400,000 African slaves were transported directly across the Atlantic to mainland North America between 1500 and 1866 (although the importation of slaves was abolished in 1808). Blacks made up a much larger share of the population before slavery's abolition. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily since 1900, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. Since WWII, the U.S. has established itself as the world's foremost superpower, with the world's largest economy, and most powerful military. This growth in prosperity has been accompanied by increases in living standards, particularly through medical advances, infrastructure improvements, clean water accessibility. These have all contributed to higher infant and child survival rates, as well as an increase in life expectancy (doubling from roughly 40 to 80 years in the past 150 years), which have also played a large part in population growth. As fertility rates decline and increases in life expectancy slows, migration remains the largest factor in population growth. Since the 1960s, Latin America has now become the most common origin for migrants in the U.S., while immigration rates from Asia have also increased significantly. It remains to be seen how immigration restrictions of the current administration affect long-term population projections for the United States.

This statistic shows the total population of the Kingdom of Serbia from 1834 to 1910. In the early nineteenth century Serbia was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and was granted de facto independence from the Ottomans in 1817 (although the Ottomans still occupied Belgrade until 1867). With the weakening of the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s, and the expansion of other European powers such as Austria and Russia, Serbia's borders changed frequently and over time it gained stability and international acceptance as a new independent state. The population given here is not of the modern-day area of Serbia, but rather the nineteenth century Kingdom of Serbia, which was significantly smaller.

In 1834, the population of the Kingdom of Serbia was just 678 thousand people, although there were many ethnic Serbs living outside these borders under the rule of other kingdoms. The population then grew rather steadily to 1.35 million in 1874, before it grows to 1.9 million in 1884. This huge jump in the population is a result of the acquisition of new territory from the Ottomans, which added over 300,000 people to the Kingdom, and the new data also included military personnel, which was not included in the previous entries.

From 1884 onwards the population continues to grow, and it reaches 2.9 million people by 1910, which is the final collection of data before the First World War. World War I began on July 28th 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in retaliation for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo one month before. By the end of the war as many as 1.3 million Serbs died as a direct result of the conflict, which is the highest percentage of any overall population involved in the war, and almost sixty percent of all Serbian men died.

Hungary: Transleithania was the Hungarian-ruled section of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which controlled much of Central Europe from 1867 to 1918. This graphic shows the total population of Hungary: Transleithania from 1850 until 1910, just before the outbreak of World War I. As we can see from the graph, the population grows rather gradually throughout this 60 year period. The population begins at 13.2 million people in 1850, and then rises gradually to 20.9 million in 1910, just 4 years before the empire declares war on Serbia, which would develop into the First World War. As mentioned, the population rises gradually, although it does slow quite noticeably between 1869 and 1880, this is because of the data collecting methods of the time, as the earlier entries did not include military personnel. This also influences the data relating to gender, as the balance between the number of men and women fluctuates throughout this time. From 1880 onwards, the population of Transleithania enjoyed healthy growth due to increased industrialization and standard of living.

The present study is an exemplary analysis of the development and the changes of living in a big city of the 19th century. The study tries to develop indicators for the evaluation of the urban housing provision during the process of urbanization that relate occurrence and extent of housing shortage with quantifiable standards of housing provision looking at the example of Hamburg in the second part of the 19th century. Thereby a long term analysis of the material circumstances of housing conditions will be shown and at the same time the concept of housing shortage in its historical relativity through a comparison with the living conditions in the Federal Republic of Germany will be clarified. Based on this, in the second step standards and social disparities of housing in their social stratification and in its urban structure change will be examined. In how far the example of Hamburg in the late 19th century can be generalized will be reviewed through a comparison of housing types and housing provision levels of German cities using a cross-sectional comparison of 1905. “Based on a comparison of metropolitan living situations it will be attempted to show the level and extend of disparities in the housing provision in the late 19th century using a typology of metropolitan housing structures. We assume that the housing structure of a city can only be represented in a very imperfect way using a more or less arbitrary chosen random variable. Much more information can be derived from the correlation of many different characteristics of the basic structure of urban housing, that can be understood as quasi-independent variables and that build the basis of the comparison. For a hierarchical cluster analysis with 27 variables 30 cities were considered for statistical classification and an empirical typecast. The used data is based on statistical housing surveys of German cities that were made in the context of the population census from the first December of 1905 and on the information if the profession and establishment census from July 1907. Three fourth of the cities (with more than 100.000 inhabitants) of the German Empire were selected” (Wischermann, a. cit., p. 401).“The excellent public statistics from Hamburg were, especially in the turn of the century, adjusted with many private surveys. Therefor the state of the quantitative sources for Hamburg is probably the best one of the German Empire… The situation of the sources for the investigation of the development of the housing circumstances in the 19th century in Hamburg is better than in other parts of Germany. This data basis enabled this study going back until the beginning of the industrialization; it enabled the investigation of one of the most important German case studies of changes in urban housing in the 19th century in a city that was at the frontier of English, French and Berlin zones of influence on the development of living circumstances in Germany. It is also a paradigm for the investigation of structural changes of housing within a city under the impact of economic transitions (extension of the harbor), hygienic innovation (since the cholera epidemic) and several urban development projects. Especially in the German urbanization period quality and structure of housing in the developing cities are connected with the urban area and the socio-spatial differentiation of housing in an extent that has not been known so far.” (Wischermann, a. cit., p. 13, p. 15). Data tables in HISTAT:(In addition, the cross-sectional data for 1905 for cluster analysis of German cities (30 cities, 27 variables for the year 1905) can be ordered at the GESIS data archive number ZA8474). A. Tables from the appendixA.01 Development of the population in the inner city and the suburbs of Hamburg (1817-1866)A.02 Housing stock in the inner city and the suburbs of Hamburg (1817-1866)A.03 Present local population of Hamburg and the districts (1867-1910)A.04 Movement of the population in Hamburg (1864-1913)A.05 The population density of Hamburg’s districts (1871-1910)A.06 Housing stock density of Hamburg’s districts(1867-1910)A.07 The provision level of housing in Hamburg (1867-1912)A.08 Internal density of Hamburg and its districts A: residents per room without kitchens (1885-1910)A.09 Internal density of Hamburg and its districts B: inhabitants per heated room (1885-1910)A.10 Occupancy of Hamburg and its districts: residents per apartment (1867-1910)A.11 Empty rooms and their rental value in Hamburg (1866-1913)A.12 Empty rooms in Hamburg and its districts (1867-1910) A.13 New construction, alteration and demolition statistics of the city of Hamburg (1885-1912)A.14 Small housing production in Hamburg (1896-1912)A.15 Landowner relations in Hamburg (1875-1910)A.16 Development of floor living in Hamburg (1867-1910)A.17 Residents after number of floors on Hamburg (1867-1910)A.18 Basement apartments in the districts of Hamburg (1867-1910)A.19 Apartments in the back building in Ham...

Austria: Cisleithania was the Austrian-ruled section of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This graphic shows the total population of Austria: Cisleithania from 1818 until 1910, just before the outbreak of World War I. As we can see from the graph, the population grows rather gradually throughout this 92 year period. The only dip in population comes between 1846 and 1851, possibly as a result of the revolutions that took place in 1848. After this time the population continues to grow before reaching over 28.5 million people in 1910.

The later stages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's history were marked by a period of internal tensions between the varying ethnic groups, as the ethnic Slavs, Czechs and Romance groups felt oppressed by the ruling Germanic and Magyar peoples. The Empire was then dissolved in 1918 following its defeat during the First World War, and a number of new states were formed in the aftermath.

The state of Belgium owes its name to Julius Caesar, who used the name "Belgium" to refer to the region in his narrative "The Gallic Wars". After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region emerged as a cosmopolitan trading center, and was a collection of smaller duchies and states (such as Flanders and Brabant), before modern history saw control of the region pass between France, the Netherlands and (to a lesser extent) Spain. Modern day Belgium emerged in 1830 following the Belgian Revolution when it gained independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Throughout this time, the Belgian region was the setting of many conflicts between other European powers, which greatly affected the population development and demography of the area. From 1800 until the First world War, the population of Belgium grew steadily, and more than doubled in the nineteenth century. The World Wars Population growth stagnated in the 1910s, as a result of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. Belgium was one of the focal points of military action in the war, and many military personnel from other nations also lost their lives here during the conflict. Much of the Second World War also took place in Belgium, and although it remained neutral at the outbreak of both wars, it was invaded twice by Germany due to its strategic importance. Belgium suffered an estimated 88,000 fatalities during the war; with many further military fatalities from other nations also perishing in the region. Continuous growth From 1950 onwards, Belgium's population grows at a relatively consistent rate, to more than ten million people the year 2000. Since the turn of the millennium, a positive net migration rate and higher life expectancy has meant that Belgium's population has grown even faster rate than in the twentieth century. Today, Belgium has a very high standard of living, and the capital city of Brussels is home to the headquarters of many international institutions, particularly the European Union.

From 1273 until 1918, Austria was the seat of power of the House of Habsburg; one of Europe's most powerful and influential royal families of the past millennium. During this time and in the subsequent century since the Austro-Hungarian Empire's dissolution, the borders and demography of the Austrian state have changed dramatically, with the population growing from approximately three million people in 1800 to just over nine million in 2020. The area of modern Austria's population rose gradually throughout the nineteenth century, until the early 1900s, where it then dropped and fluctuated during the World Wars, before rising again until recent years.

End of an empire

The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, caused Austria to declare war on Serbia, which marked the outbreak of the First World War. The war (and subsequent Spanish Flu pandemic) would see the deaths of more than 1.2 million people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the area of modern Austria's population dropped by almost 400,000 people between 1916 and 1920. In the years preceding the First World War, Slavic nationalism and tensions between various ethnicities in the empire had escalated to a new level; following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, new states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created for corresponding ethnic groups, while Austrian and Hungarian states were created for ethnic Germans and Magyars respectively (Austria still uses this border today). The Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Austria from joining Germany, however in 1938, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler (who was born in Austria) united the two nations as part of the German Third Reich, with overwhelming support by the people of Austria. In the next few years, Austria's population decreased slightly, as a result of the forced relocation of Jews and the outbreak of the Second World War. Due to the Austria-German union, separate records were not kept for Austrian and German deaths during the war, however most estimates put Austria's total at over 350,000 fatalities.

Post-war Austria

Following Germany's defeat, Austria was split into four separately administered sections, and then the Second Austrian Republic was established in 1955, declaring its permanent neutrality in foreign affairs. In the period after this Austria has enjoyed a period of continued prosperity with a high standard of living and reasonable economic growth. Population growth stagnated in the 80's with the legalization of abortion and improved access to contraception, but has grown steadily in the past three decades. Austria is consistently ranked among the top 20 richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita, and in 2018 it was ranked 20th in the world by the Human Development Index.

In 1910, modern-day Hungary was a part of the much larger Austro-Hungarian Empire, however this information relates only to the Trianon area, which is what we call Hungary today. In 1910 the population of men and women was very similar, with both figures around 3.8 million people, however the impact of WWI means that the number of women is 330 thousand greater than the number of men in 1920. Although the graph does not show us the total number of Hungarian people who fell in WWI, it does show us the long-term effect that the war had on the population.

This trend is repeated in the Second World War, however to a larger extent. From the graph we can see that both populations grew gradually in the inter-war years, however the growth rate of both genders falls greatly, and the total number of men falls from by 70 thousand people in the 1940s. Again, the graph does not show us the total number who fell during the war, as the interval between the figures is too large, however it does show the long term impacts of the war.

After WWII we can see that the difference between men and women is now 335 thousand in 1950, and the difference remains around this number until 1980 when both populations begin to decline. The number of men drops continuously from 5.2 million in 1980 to 4.7 million in 2015, and the number of women drops from 5.6 to 5.1 million during this time, although it does grow between 1990 and 1995 before falling again. The difference in populations also grows throughout this time from 340 thousand people to 520 thousand people. This decline in population is due to a number of factors, most notably the decreasing birthrate, economic emigration and strict anti-immigration policies against non-EU citizens. The number of men is also decreasing at a faster rate than the number of women, as men are statistically more likely to migrate in search of work.

In the early twentieth century, modern-day Czechia and Slovakia were united, as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until after World War I. It then became an independent state in 1918, although the borders did change during this time and after the Second World War, until it peacefully dissolved into the both Czechia and Slovakia in 1993. The population of Czechoslovakia did not grow significantly between 1910 and 1921, and in regards to gender the male population actually decreased by around 50 thousand. The population drastically decreases from 1930 to 1946/7, from 14.7 to 12.2 million people. These changes are mostly as a result of both World Wars, mass displacement of ethnic Germans following WWII, and the rearranging of Czechoslovakia's borders. After 1946/7 the population grows quite gradually, and is almost reaches it's pre-WWII height again in 1970, with 14.35 million people.

Throughout the 19th century, what we know today as Poland was not a united, independent country; apart from a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars, Polish land was split between the Austro-Hungarian, Prussian (later German) and Russian empires. During the 1800s, the population of Poland grew steadily, from approximately nine million people in 1800 to almost 25 million in 1900; throughout this time, the Polish people and their culture were oppressed by their respective rulers, and cultural suppression intensified following a number of uprisings in the various territories. Following the outbreak of the First World War, it is estimated that almost 3.4 million men from Poland served in the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian armies, with a further 300,000 drafted for forced labor by the German authorities. Several hundred thousand were forcibly resettled in the region during the course of the war, as Poland was one of the most active areas of the conflict. For these reasons, among others, it is difficult to assess the extent of Poland's military and civilian fatalities during the war, with most reliable estimates somewhere between 640,000 and 1.1 million deaths. In the context of present-day Poland, it is estimated that the population fell by two million people in the 1910s, although some of this was also due to the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed in the wake of the war.

Poland 1918-1945

After more than a century of foreign rule, an independent Polish state was established by the Allied Powers in 1918, although it's borders were considerably different to today's, and were extended by a number of additional conflicts. The most significant of these border conflicts was the Polish-Soviet War in 1919-1920, which saw well over 100,000 deaths, and victory helped Poland to emerge as the Soviet Union's largest political and military rival in Eastern Europe during the inter-war period. Economically, Poland struggled to compete with Europe's other powers during this time, due to its lack of industrialization and infrastructure, and the global Great Depression of the 1930s exacerbated this further. Political corruption and instability was also rife in these two decades, and Poland's leadership failed to prepare the nation for the Second World War. Poland had prioritized its eastern defenses, and some had assumed that Germany's Nazi regime would see Poland as an ally due to their shared rivalry with the Soviet Union, but this was not the case. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, in the first act of the War, and the Soviet Union launched a counter invasion on September 17; Germany and the Soviet Union had secretly agreed to do this with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, and had succeeded in taking the country by September's end. When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 it took complete control of Poland, which continued to be the staging ground for much of the fighting between these nations. It has proven difficult to calculate the total number of Polish fatalities during the war, for a variety of reasons, however most historians have come to believe that the figure is around six million fatalities, which equated to almost one fifth of the entire pre-war population; the total population dropped by four million throughout the 1940s. The majority of these deaths took place during the Holocaust, which saw the Nazi regime commit an ethnic genocide of up to three million Polish Jews, and as many as 2.8 million non-Jewish Poles; these figures do not include the large number of victims from other countries who died after being forcefully relocated to concentration camps in Poland.

Post-war Poland

The immediate aftermath of the war was also extremely unorganized and chaotic, as millions were forcefully relocated from or to the region, in an attempt to create an ethnically homogenized state, and thousands were executed during this process. A communist government was quickly established by the Soviet Union, and socialist social and economic policies were gradually implemented over the next decade, as well as the rebuilding, modernization and education of the country. In the next few decades, particularly in the 1980s, the Catholic Church, student groups and trade unions (as part of the Solidarity movement) gradually began to challenge the government, weakening the communist party's control over the nation (although it did impose martial law and imprison political opponent throughout the early-1980s). Increasing civil unrest and the weakening of Soviet influence saw communism in Poland come to an end in the elections of 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poland's population growth stagnated at around 38.5 million people, before gradually decreasing since the turn of the millennium, to 37.8 million people in 2020. This decline was mostly due to a negative migration rate, as Polish workers could now travel more freely to Western Europea...

At the beginning of the 19th century, the area of modern-day Italy, at the time a collection of various states and kingdoms, was estimated to have a population of nineteen million, a figure which would grow steadily throughout the century, and by the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the population would rise to just over 26 million.

Italy’s population would see its first major disruption during the First World War, as Italy would join the Allied Forces in their fight against Austria-Hungary and Germany. In the First World War, Italy’s population would largely stagnate at 36 million, only climbing again following the end of the war in 1920. While Italy would also play a prominent role in the Second World War, as the National Fascist Party-led country would fight alongside Germany against the Allies, Italian fatalities from the war would not represent a significant percentage of Italy’s population compared to other European countries in the conflict. As a result, Italy would exit the Second World War with a population of just over 45 million.

From this point onwards the Italian economy started to recover from the war, and eventually boomed, leading to increased employment and standards of living, which facilitated steady population growth until the mid-1980s, when falling fertility and birth rates would cause growth to largely cease. From this point onward, the Italian population would remain at just over 57 million, until the 2000s when it began growing again due to an influx of migrants, peaking in 2017 at just over 60 million people. In the late 2010s, however, the Italian population began declining again, as immigration slowed and the economy weakened. As a result, in 2020, Italy is estimated to have fallen to a population of 59 million.

In 1800, the region of Germany was not a single, unified nation, but a collection of decentralized, independent states, bound together as part of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire was dissolved, however, in 1806, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Europe, and the German Confederation was established in 1815. Napoleonic reforms led to the abolition of serfdom, extension of voting rights to property-owners, and an overall increase in living standards. The population grew throughout the remainder of the century, as improvements in sanitation and medicine (namely, mandatory vaccination policies) saw child mortality rates fall in later decades. As Germany industrialized and the economy grew, so too did the argument for nationhood; calls for pan-Germanism (the unification of all German-speaking lands) grew more popular among the lower classes in the mid-1800s, especially following the revolutions of 1948-49. In contrast, industrialization and poor harvests also saw high unemployment in rural regions, which led to waves of mass migration, particularly to the U.S.. In 1886, the Austro-Prussian War united northern Germany under a new Confederation, while the remaining German states (excluding Austria and Switzerland) joined following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; this established the German Empire, under the Prussian leadership of Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. 1871 to 1945 - Unification to the Second World War The first decades of unification saw Germany rise to become one of Europe's strongest and most advanced nations, and challenge other world powers on an international scale, establishing colonies in Africa and the Pacific. These endeavors were cut short, however, when the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent was assassinated in Sarajevo; Germany promised a "blank check" of support for Austria's retaliation, who subsequently declared war on Serbia and set the First World War in motion. Viewed as the strongest of the Central Powers, Germany mobilized over 11 million men throughout the war, and its army fought in all theaters. As the war progressed, both the military and civilian populations grew increasingly weakened due to malnutrition, as Germany's resources became stretched. By the war's end in 1918, Germany suffered over 2 million civilian and military deaths due to conflict, and several hundred thousand more during the accompanying influenza pandemic. Mass displacement and the restructuring of Europe's borders through the Treaty of Versailles saw the population drop by several million more.

Reparations and economic mismanagement also financially crippled Germany and led to bitter indignation among many Germans in the interwar period; something that was exploited by Adolf Hitler on his rise to power. Reckless printing of money caused hyperinflation in 1923, when the currency became so worthless that basic items were priced at trillions of Marks; the introduction of the Rentenmark then stabilized the economy before the Great Depression of 1929 sent it back into dramatic decline. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi government disregarded the Treaty of Versailles' restrictions and Germany rose once more to become an emerging superpower. Hitler's desire for territorial expansion into eastern Europe and the creation of an ethnically-homogenous German empire then led to the invasion of Poland in 1939, which is considered the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Again, almost every aspect of German life contributed to the war effort, and more than 13 million men were mobilized. After six years of war, and over seven million German deaths, the Axis powers were defeated and Germany was divided into four zones administered by France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.. Mass displacement, shifting borders, and the relocation of peoples based on ethnicity also greatly affected the population during this time. 1945 to 2020 - Partition and Reunification In the late 1940s, cold war tensions led to two distinct states emerging in Germany; the Soviet-controlled east became the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), and the three western zones merged to form the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Additionally, Berlin was split in a similar fashion, although its location deep inside DDR territory created series of problems and opportunities for the those on either side. Life quickly changed depending on which side of the border one lived. Within a decade, rapid economic recovery saw West Germany become western Europe's strongest economy and a key international player. In the east, living standards were much lower, although unemployment was almost non-existent; internationally, East Germany was the strongest economy in the Eastern Bloc (after the USSR), though it eventually fell behind the West by the 1970s. The restriction of movement between the two states also led to labor shortages in t...

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Hungary was approximately 3.3 million, a figure which would steadily rise in the first two decades of the 19th century, as modernization driven by rising exports of cash crops resulting from the ongoing Napoleonic wars would see Hungary become a major exporter in Europe. The slowing in population growth in the 1920s can be attributed in part to the economic recession which hit Hungary in the years following Napoleon defeat, as a grain prices collapsed, and economic hardship intensified in the country. Hungary would see a small increase in population growth in the 1860s, as the country would merge with the Austria to form Austria-Hungary in 1967. As industrialization would continue to accelerate in Hungary, the country’s population rise even further, reaching just over seven million by 1900.

While Hungary had enjoyed largely uninterrupted growth throughout the 19th century, the first half of the 20th century would see several major disruptions to Hungary’s population growth. Growth would slow greatly in the First World War, as Austria-Hungary would find itself one of the largest combatants in the conflict, losing an estimated 1.8 to 2 million people to the war. Hungary’s population would flatline entirely in the 1940s, as the country would see extensive military losses in the country’s invasion of the Soviet Union alongside Germany, and further loss of civilian life in the German occupation of the country and subsequent deportation and mass-murder of several hundred thousand Hungarian Jews. As a result, Hungary’s population would remain stagnant at just over nine million until the early 1950s.

After remaining stagnant for over a decade, Hungary’s population would spike greatly in the early 1950s, as a combination of a tax on childlessness and strict contraception restrictions implemented by then-Minister of Public Welfare Anna Ratkó would lead to a dramatic expansion in births, causing Hungary’s population to rise by over half a million in just five years. However, this spike would prove only temporary, as the death of Stalin in 1953 and subsequent resignation of much of the Stalinist regime in Hungary would see an end to the pro-natalist policies driving the spike. From 1980 onward, however, Hungary’s population would begin to steadily decline, as a sharp reduction in birth rates, combined with a trend of anti-immigrant policies by the Hungarian government, both before and after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, has led Hungary’s population to fall steadily from its 10.8 million peak in 1980, and in 2020, Hungary is estimated to have a population of just over nine and a half million.

In 1800, the population of Japan was just over 30 million, a figure which would grow by just two million in the first half of the 19th century. However, with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the emperor in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan would begin transforming from an isolated feudal island, to a modernized empire built on Western models. The Meiji period would see a rapid rise in the population of Japan, as industrialization and advancements in healthcare lead to a significant reduction in child mortality rates, while the creation overseas colonies would lead to a strong economic boom. However, this growth would slow beginning in 1937, as Japan entered a prolonged war with the Republic of China, which later grew into a major theater of the Second World War. The war was eventually brought to Japan's home front, with the escalation of Allied air raids on Japanese urban centers from 1944 onwards (Tokyo was the most-bombed city of the Second World War). By the war's end in 1945 and the subsequent occupation of the island by the Allied military, Japan had suffered over two and a half million military fatalities, and over one million civilian deaths.

The population figures of Japan were quick to recover, as the post-war “economic miracle” would see an unprecedented expansion of the Japanese economy, and would lead to the country becoming one of the first fully industrialized nations in East Asia. As living standards rose, the population of Japan would increase from 77 million in 1945, to over 127 million by the end of the century. However, growth would begin to slow in the late 1980s, as birth rates and migration rates fell, and Japan eventually grew to have one of the oldest populations in the world. The population would peak in 2008 at just over 128 million, but has consistently fallen each year since then, as the fertility rate of the country remains below replacement level (despite government initiatives to counter this) and the country's immigrant population remains relatively stable. The population of Japan is expected to continue its decline in the coming years, and in 2020, it is estimated that approximately 126 million people inhabit the island country.

In 1800, it is estimated that approximately 9.4 million people lived in the region of modern-day South Korea (and 13.8 million on the entire peninsula). The population of this region would remain fairly constant through much of the 19th century, but would begin to grow gradually starting in the mid-1800s, as the fall of the Joseon dynasty and pressure from the U.S. and Japan would end centuries of Korean isolationism. Following the opening of the country to foreign trade, the Korean peninsula would begin to modernize, and by the start of the 20th century, it would have a population of just over ten million. The Korean peninsula was then annexed by Japan in 1910, whose regime implemented industrialization and modernization policies that saw the population of South Korea rising from just under ten million in 1900, to over fifteen million by the start of the Second World War in 1939.

The Korean War Like most regions, the end of the Second World War coincided with a baby boom, that helped see South Korea's population grow by almost two million between 1945 and 1950. However, this boom would stop suddenly in the early 1950s, due to disruption caused by the Korean War. After WWII, the peninsula was split along the 38th parallel, with governments on both sides claiming to be the legitimate rulers of all Korea. Five years of tensions then culminated in North Korea's invasion of the South in June 1950, in the first major conflict of the Cold War. In September, the UN-backed South then repelled the Soviet- and Chinese-backed Northern army, and the frontlines would then fluctuate on either side of the 38th parallel throughout the next three years. The war came to an end in July, 1953, and had an estimated death toll of three million fatalities. The majority of fatalities were civilians on both sides, although the North suffered a disproportionate amount due to extensive bombing campaigns of the U.S. Unlike North Korea, the South's total population did not fall during the war.

Post-war South Korea Between the war's end and the late 1980s, the South's total population more than doubled. In these decades, South Korea was generally viewed as a nominal democracy under authoritarian and military leadership; it was not until 1988 when South Korea transitioned into a stable democracy, and grew its international presence. Much of South Korea's rapid socio-economic growth in the late 20th century was based on the West German model, and was greatly assisted by Japanese and U.S. investment. Today, South Korea is considered one of the world's wealthiest and most developed nations, ranking highly in terms of GDP, human development and life expectancy; it is home to some of the most valuable brands in the world, such as Samsung and Hyundai; and has a growing international cultural presence in music and cinema. In the past decades, South Korea's population growth has somewhat slowed, however it remains one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with total population of more than 51 million people.

In 1800, the population of the territory that makes up present-day Thailand was approximately 4.7 million people. As part of the kingdom of Siam, the population of Thailand would grow gradually through the 19 th century, with much of the population growth being driven by Chinese emigration from southern Qing China into Siam, in search of work and refuge from instability in their home country. This migrant influx would continue throughout the century, with estimates suggesting that the Chinese population in Siam grew from 230,000 in 1825, to over 792,000 in 1910; by 1932, over 12 percent of the population in modern-day Thailand was ethnically Chinese. Migration from China would see another surge under the reign of Vajiravudh, as the "Warlord era" in China, after the fall of the Qing dynasty, would see entire families of Chinese immigrants arriving in Thailand. While immigration would slow in later years, Chinese-Thai would remain a significant demographic in Thailand’s population, both as one of the largest overseas Chinese populations, and accounting for an estimated 11-14 percent of the total Thailand population in 2012.

Population growth would slow somewhat in the 1930s, as several rebellions and coups, paired with a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment in the country, would result in a sharp decline in immigration to the country. In the years following the Second World War, the population of Thailand would begin to grow rapidly, following a wave of urbanization and a significant increase in standard of living throughout the country. As a result, the population of Thailand would rise from approximately 20 million in 1950, to just under 63 million by the turn of the century just 50 years later. This population growth would slow somewhat as the country would continue to modernize in the 2000s, and in 2020, it is estimated that just under 70 million people live in Thailand.

Prior to 1829, the area of modern day Greece was largely under the control of the Ottoman Empire. In 1821, the Greeks declared their independence from the Ottomans, and achieved it within 8 years through the Greek War of Independence. The Independent Kingdom of Greece was established in 1829 and made up the southern half of present-day, mainland Greece, along with some Mediterranean islands. Over the next century, Greece's borders would expand and readjust drastically, through a number of conflicts and diplomatic agreements; therefore the population of Greece within those political borders** was much lower than the population in what would be today's borders. As there were large communities of ethnic Greeks living in neighboring countries during this time, particularly in Turkey, and the data presented here does not show the full extent of the First World War, Spanish Flu Pandemic and Greko-Turkish War on these Greek populations. While it is difficult to separate the fatalities from each of these events, it is estimated that between 500,000 and 900,000 ethnic Greeks died at the hands of the Ottomans between the years 1914 and 1923, and approximately 150,000 died due to the 1918 flu pandemic. These years also saw the exchange of up to one million Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece, and several hundred thousand Muslims from Greece to Turkey; this exchange is one reason why Greece's total population did not change drastically, despite the genocide, displacement and demographic upheaval of the 1910s and 1920s. Greece in WWII A new Hellenic Republic was established in 1924, which saw a decade of peace and modernization in Greece, however this was short lived. The Greek monarchy was reintroduced in 1935, and the prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, headed a totalitarian government that remained in place until the Second World War. Metaxas tried to maintain Greek neutrality as the war began, however Italy's invasion of the Balkans made this impossible, and the Italian army tried invading Greece via Albania in 1940. The outnumbered and lesser-equipped Greek forces were able to hold off the Italian invasion and then push them backwards into Albania, marking the first Allied victory in the war. Following a series of Italian failures, Greece was eventually overrun when Hitler launched a German and Bulgarian invasion in April 1941, taking Athens within three weeks. Germany's involvement in Greece meant that Hitler's planned invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed, and Hitler cited this as the reason for it's failure (although most historians disagree with this). Over the course of the war approximately eight to eleven percent of the Greek population died due to fighting, extermination, starvation and disease; including over eighty percent of Greece's Jewish population in the Holocaust. Following the liberation of Greece in 1944, the country was then plunged into a civil war (the first major conflict of the Cold War), which lasted until 1949, and saw the British and American-supported government fight with Greek communists for control of the country. The government eventually defeated the Soviet-supported communist forces, and established American influence in the Aegean and Balkans throughout the Cold War. Post-war Greece From the 1950s until the 1970s, the Marshall Plan, industrialization and an emerging Tourism sector helped the Greek economy to boom, with one of the strongest growth rates in the world. Apart from the military coup, which ruled from 1967 to 1974, Greece remained relatively peaceful, prosperous and stable throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The population reached 11.2 million in the early 2000s, before going into decline for the past fifteen years. This decline came about due to a negative net migration rate and slowing birth rate, ultimately facilitated by the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008; many Greeks left the country in search of work elsewhere, and the economic troubles have impacted the financial incentives that were previously available for families with many children. While the financial crisis was a global event, Greece was arguably the hardest-hit nation during the crisis, and suffered the longest recession of any advanced economy. The financial crisis has had a consequential impact on the Greek population, which has dropped by 800,000 in 15 years, and the average age has increased significantly, as thousands of young people migrate in search of employment.

In 1800, the population of the region of present-day India was approximately 169 million. The population would grow gradually throughout the 19th century, rising to over 240 million by 1900. Population growth would begin to increase in the 1920s, as a result of falling mortality rates, due to improvements in health, sanitation and infrastructure. However, the population of India would see it’s largest rate of growth in the years following the country’s independence from the British Empire in 1948, where the population would rise from 358 million to over one billion by the turn of the century, making India the second country to pass the billion person milestone. While the rate of growth has slowed somewhat as India begins a demographics shift, the country’s population has continued to grow dramatically throughout the 21st century, and in 2020, India is estimated to have a population of just under 1.4 billion, well over a billion more people than one century previously. Today, approximately 18% of the Earth’s population lives in India, and it is estimated that India will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world within the next five years.