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 prolonged development arc in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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.

The Global Population Count Grid Time Series Estimates provide a back-cast time series of population grids based on the year 2000 population grid from SEDAC's Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1) data set. The grids were created by using rates of population change between decades from the coarser resolution History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) database to back-cast the GRUMPv1 population count grids. Mismatches between the spatial extent of the HYDE calculated rates and GRUMPv1 population data were resolved via infilling rate cells based on a focal mean of values. Finally, the grids were adjusted so that the population totals for each country equaled the UN World Population Prospects (2008 Revision) estimates for that country for the respective year (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000). These data do not represent census observations for the years prior to 2000, and therefore can at best be thought of as estimations of the populations in given locations. The population grids are consistent internally within the time series, but are not recommended for use in creating longer time series with any other population grids, including GRUMPv1, Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4), or non-SEDAC developed population grids. These population grids served as an input to SEDAC's Global Estimated Net Migration Grids by Decade: 1970-2000 data set.

The Global Population Density Grid Time Series Estimates provide a back-cast time series of population density grids based on the year 2000 population grid from SEDAC's Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1) data set. The grids were created by using rates of population change between decades from the coarser resolution History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) database to back-cast the GRUMPv1 population density grids. Mismatches between the spatial extent of the HYDE calculated rates and GRUMPv1 population data were resolved via infilling rate cells based on a focal mean of values. Finally, the grids were adjusted so that the population totals for each country equaled the UN World Population Prospects (2008 Revision) estimates for that country for the respective year (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000). These data do not represent census observations for the years prior to 2000, and therefore can at best be thought of as estimations of the populations in given locations. The population grids are consistent internally within the time series, but are not recommended for use in creating longer time series with any other population grids, including GRUMPv1, Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4), or non-SEDAC developed population grids. These population grids served as an input to SEDAC's Global Estimated Net Migration Grids by Decade: 1970-2000 data set.

Data Usage Notice

This version is not recommended for download. Please check the newest version.

We would like to inform you that the updated GlobPOP dataset (2021-2022) have been available in version 2.0. The GlobPOP dataset (2021-2022) in the current version is not recommended for your work. The GlobPOP dataset (1990-2020) in the current version is the same as version 1.0.

Thank you for your continued support of the GlobPOP.

If you encounter any issues, please contact us via email at lulingliu@mail.bnu.edu.cn.

Introduction

Continuously monitoring global population spatial dynamics is essential for implementing effective policies related to sustainable development, such as epidemiology, urban planning, and global inequality.

Here, we present GlobPOP, a new continuous global gridded population product with a high-precision spatial resolution of 30 arcseconds from 1990 to 2020. Our data-fusion framework is based on cluster analysis and statistical learning approaches, which intends to fuse the existing five products(Global Human Settlements Layer Population (GHS-POP), Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), Gridded Population of the World Version 4 (GPWv4), LandScan Population datasets and WorldPop datasets to a new continuous global gridded population (GlobPOP). The spatial validation results demonstrate that the GlobPOP dataset is highly accurate. To validate the temporal accuracy of GlobPOP at the country level, we have developed an interactive web application, accessible at https://globpop.shinyapps.io/GlobPOP/, where data users can explore the country-level population time-series curves of interest and compare them with census data.

With the availability of GlobPOP dataset in both population count and population density formats, researchers and policymakers can leverage our dataset to conduct time-series analysis of population and explore the spatial patterns of population development at various scales, ranging from national to city level.

Data description

The product is produced in 30 arc-seconds resolution(approximately 1km in equator) and is made available in GeoTIFF format. There are two population formats, one is the 'Count'(Population count per grid) and another is the 'Density'(Population count per square kilometer each grid)

Each GeoTIFF filename has 5 fields that are separated by an underscore "_". A filename extension follows these fields. The fields are described below with the example filename:

GlobPOP_Count_30arc_1990_I32

Field 1: GlobPOP(Global gridded population)
Field 2: Pixel unit is population "Count" or population "Density"
Field 3: Spatial resolution is 30 arc seconds
Field 4: Year "1990"
Field 5: Data type is I32(Int 32) or F32(Float32)

More information

Please refer to the paper for detailed information:

Liu, L., Cao, X., Li, S. et al. A 31-year (1990–2020) global gridded population dataset generated by cluster analysis and statistical learning. Sci Data 11, 124 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02913-0.

The fully reproducible codes are publicly available at GitHub: https://github.com/lulingliu/GlobPOP.

The Global Population Count Grid Time Series Estimates provide a back-cast time series of population grids based on the year 2000 population grid from SEDAC's Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1) data set. The grids were created by using rates of population change between decades from the coarser resolution History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) database to back-cast the GRUMPv1 population count grids. Mismatches between the spatial extent of the HYDE calculated rates and GRUMPv1 population data were resolved via infilling rate cells based on a focal mean of values. Finally, the grids were adjusted so that the population totals for each country equaled the UN World Population Prospects (2008 Revision) estimates for that country for the respective year (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000). These data do not represent census observations for the years prior to 2000, and therefore can at best be thought of as estimations of the populations in given locations. The population grids are consistent internally within the time series, but are not recommended for use in creating longer time series with any other population grids, including GRUMPv1, Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4), or non-SEDAC developed population grids. These population grids served as an input to SEDAC's Global Estimated Net Migration Grids by Decade: 1970-2000 data set. To provide back-cast population count estimates at 30 arc-second (~1 km) resolution.

Global Population of the World (GPW) translates census population data to a latitude-longitude grid so that population data may be used in cross-disciplinary studies. There are three data files with this data set for the reference years 1990 and 1995. Over 127,000 administrative units and population counts were collected and integrated from various sources to create the gridded data. In brief, GPW was created using the following steps:

* Population data were estimated for the product reference years, 1990 and 1995, either by the data source or by interpolating or extrapolating the given estimates for other years.
* Additional population estimates were created by adjusting the source population data to match UN national population estimates for the reference years.
* Borders and coastlines of the spatial data were matched to the Digital Chart of the World where appropriate and lakes from the Digital Chart of the World were added.
* The resulting data were then transformed into grids of UN-adjusted and unadjusted population counts for the reference years.
* Grids containing the area of administrative boundary data in each cell (net of lakes) were created and used with the count grids to produce population densities.

As with any global data set based on multiple data sources, the spatial and attribute precision of GPW is variable. The level of detail and accuracy, both in time and space, vary among the countries for which data were obtained.

The statistic shows the development of the world population from 1950 to 2050. The world population was around 7.38 billion people in 2015.

The global population

As shown above, the total number of people living on Earth has more than doubled since the 1950s, and continues to increase. A look at the development of the world population since the beginning of the Common Era shows that such a surge in numbers is unprecedented. The first significant rise in population occurred during the 14th century, after the Black Death had killed approximately 25 million people worldwide. Subsequently, the global population increased slowly but steadily until it reached record numbers between 1950 and 2000.

The majority of the global population lives on the Asian continent, as a statistic of the world population by continent shows. In around 100 years, it is estimated that population levels on the African continent will have reached similar levels to those we see in Asia today. As for a forecast of the development of the world population, the figures are estimated to have reached more than 10 billion by the 22nd century.

Growing population numbers pose an increasing risk to the planet, since rocketing numbers equal increased consumption of food and resources. Scientists worry that natural resources, such as oil, and food resources will become scarce, endangering the human race and, even more so, the world’s ecosystem. Nowadays, the number of undernourished / starving people worldwide has decreased slightly, but forecasts paint a darker picture.

This statistic shows the percentage of population without access to improved water sources worldwide from 1990 to 2015. In 2010, some **** percent of the world's population had no access to improved water.

Data Update Notice 数据更新通知

We are pleased to announce that the GlobPOP dataset for the years 2021-2022 has undergone a comprehensive quality check and has now been updated accordingly. Following the established methodology that ensures the high precision and reliability, these latest updates allow for even more comprehensive time-series analysis. The updated GlobPOP dataset remains available in GeoTIFF format for easy integration into your existing workflows.

2021-2022 年的 GlobPOP 数据集经过全面的质量检查,现已进行相应更新。 遵循确保高精度和可靠性的原有方法,本次更新允许进行更全面的时间序列分析。 更新后的 GlobPOP 数据集仍以 GeoTIFF 格式提供,以便轻松集成到您现有的工作流中。

To reflect these updates, our interactive web application has also been refreshed. Users can now explore the updated national population time-series curves from 1990 to 2022. This can be accessed via the same link: https://globpop.shinyapps.io/GlobPOP/. Thank you for your continued support of the GlobPOP, and we hope that the updated data will further enhance your research and policy analysis endeavors.

交互式网页反映了人口最新动态,用户现在可以探索感兴趣的国家1990 年至 2022 年人口时间序列曲线,并将其与人口普查数据进行比较。感谢您对 GlobPOP 的支持,我们希望更新的数据将进一步加强您的研究和政策分析工作。

If you encounter any issues, please contact us via email at lulingliu@mail.bnu.edu.cn.

如果您遇到任何问题,请通过电子邮件联系我们。

Introduction

Continuously monitoring global population spatial dynamics is essential for implementing effective policies related to sustainable development, such as epidemiology, urban planning, and global inequality. 持续监测全球人口空间动态对于实施与可持续发展相关的有效政策至关重要,例如流行病学、城市规划和全球不平等。

Here, we present GlobPOP, a new continuous global gridded population product with a high-precision spatial resolution of 30 arcseconds from 1990 to 2022. Our data-fusion framework is based on cluster analysis and statistical learning approaches, which intends to fuse the existing five products(Global Human Settlements Layer Population (GHS-POP), Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), Gridded Population of the World Version 4 (GPWv4), LandScan Population datasets and WorldPop datasets to a new continuous global gridded population (GlobPOP). The temporal and spatial validation results demonstrate that the GlobPOP dataset is highly accurate. GlobPOP是一套新的连续全球网格人口产品,时间跨度为从 1990 年到 2022 年,空间分辨率为 30 弧秒。数据生产融合框架基于聚类分析和统计学习方法,旨在融合现有的五个 产品(GHS-POP、GRUMP、GPWv4、LandScan和WorldPop)。时空验证结果表明GlobPOP 数据集高度准确。

With the availability of GlobPOP dataset in both population count and population density formats, researchers and policymakers can leverage our dataset to conduct time-series analysis of population and explore the spatial patterns of population development at various scales, ranging from national to city level. 通过人口计数和人口密度格式的 GlobPOP 数据集,研究人员和政策制定者可以利用该数据集对人口进行时间序列分析,并探索不同尺度的人口发展时空模式。

Data description

The product is produced in 30 arc-seconds resolution(approximately 1km in equator) and is made available in GeoTIFF format. There are two population formats, one is the 'Count'(Population count per grid) and another is the 'Density'(Population count per square kilometer each grid)

Each GeoTIFF filename has 5 fields that are separated by an underscore "_". A filename extension follows these fields. The fields are described below with the example filename:

GlobPOP_Count_30arc_1990_I32

Field 1: GlobPOP(Global gridded population)
Field 2: Pixel unit is population "Count" or population "Density"
Field 3: Spatial resolution is 30 arc seconds
Field 4: Year "1990"
Field 5: Data type is I32(Int 32) or F32(Float32)

More information

本数据相关论文已发表在Scientific Data,代码可在GitHub获取。

Please refer to the paper for detailed information:

Liu, L., Cao, X., Li, S. et al. A 31-year (1990–2020) global gridded population dataset generated by cluster analysis and statistical learning. Sci Data 11, 124 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02913-0.

The fully reproducible codes are publicly available at GitHub: https://github.com/lulingliu/GlobPOP.

In 2022,7.2 billion people worldwide were connected to the electricity network, while 0.7 had no access to electricity. The global share of people with access to electricity increased from 71 percent in 1990 to over 90 percent in 2022.

The global urban population overtook the rural population in numbers in 2007. As of 2023, 4.61 billion people live in urban areas, compared to 3.45 million in rural areas. This development underlines that rapid urbanization the world has seen in recent decades.

Global Population of the World (GPW) translates census population data to a latitude-longitude grid so that population data may be used in cross-disciplinary studies. There are three data files with this data set for the reference years 1990 and 1995. Over 127,000 administrative units and population counts were collected and integrated from various sources to create the gridded data. In brief, GPW was created using the following steps: * Population data were estimated for the product reference years, 1990 and 1995, either by the data source or by interpolating or extrapolating the given estimates for other years. * Additional population estimates were created by adjusting the source population data to match UN national population estimates for the reference years. * Borders and coastlines of the spatial data were matched to the Digital Chart of the World where appropriate and lakes from the Digital Chart of the World were added. * The resulting data were then transformed into grids of UN-adjusted and unadjusted population counts for the reference years. * Grids containing the area of administrative boundary data in each cell (net of lakes) were created and used with the count grids to produce population densities.As with any global data set based on multiple data sources, the spatial and attribute precision of GPW is variable. The level of detail and accuracy, both in time and space, vary among the countries for which data were obtained.

The Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3): Population Count Grid consists of estimates of human population for the years 1990, 1995, and 2000 by 2.5 arc-minute grid cells and associated data sets dated circa 2000. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing more than 300,000 national and sub-national administrative Units, is used to assign population values to grid cells. The population count grids contain estimates of the number of persons per grid cell. The grids are available in various GIS-compatible data formats and geographic extents (global, continent [Antarctica not included], and country levels). GPWv3 is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

The Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3): Population Count Grid consists of estimates of human population for the years 1990, 1995, and 2000 by 2.5 arc-minute grid cells and associated data sets dated circa 2000. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing more than 300,000 national and sub-national administrative Units, is used to assign population values to grid cells. The population count grids contain estimates of the number of persons per grid cell. The grids are available in various GIS-compatible data formats and geographic extents (global, continent [Antarctica not included], and country levels). GPWv3 is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project is supported by European Commission, Joint Research Center and Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy. The GHSL produces new global spatial information, evidence-based analytics, and knowledge describing the human presence in the planet.

The GHSL relies on the design and implementation of new spatial data mining technologies allowing to process automatically and extract analytics and knowledge from large amount of heterogeneous data including: global, fine-scale satellite image data streams, census data, and crowd sources or volunteering geographic information sources. Spatial data reporting objectively and systematically about the presence of population and built-up infrastructures are necessary for any evidence-based modelling or assessing of i) human and physical exposure to threats as environmental contamination and degradation, natural disasters and conflicts, ii) impact of human activities on ecosystems, and iii) access to resources.

This spatial raster dataset depicts the distribution and density of population, expressed as the number of people per cell. Residential population estimates for target years 1975, 1990, 2000 and 2015 provided by CIESIN GPWv4 were disaggregated from census or administrative units to grid cells, informed by the distribution and density of built-up as mapped in the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) global layer per corresponding epoch.

The Africa Population Distribution Database provides decadal population density data for African administrative units for the period 1960-1990. The databsae was prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme / Global Resource Information Database (UNEP/GRID) project as part of an ongoing effort to improve global, spatially referenced demographic data holdings. The database is useful for a variety of applications including strategic-level agricultural research and applications in the analysis of the human dimensions of global change.

This documentation describes the third version of a database of administrative units and associated population density data for Africa. The first version was compiled for UNEP's Global Desertification Atlas (UNEP, 1997; Deichmann and Eklundh, 1991), while the second version represented an update and expansion of this first product (Deichmann, 1994; WRI, 1995). The current work is also related to National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) activities to produce a global database of subnational population estimates (Tobler et al., 1995), and an improved database for the Asian continent (Deichmann, 1996). The new version for Africa provides considerably more detail: more than 4700 administrative units, compared to about 800 in the first and 2200 in the second version. In addition, for each of these units a population estimate was compiled for 1960, 70, 80 and 90 which provides an indication of past population dynamics in Africa. Forthcoming are population count data files as download options.

African population density data were compiled from a large number of heterogeneous sources, including official government censuses and estimates/projections derived from yearbooks, gazetteers, area handbooks, and other country studies. The political boundaries template (PONET) of the Digital Chart of the World (DCW) was used delineate national boundaries and coastlines for African countries.

For more information on African population density and administrative boundary data sets, see metadata files at [http://na.unep.net/datasets/datalist.php3] which provide information on file identification, format, spatial data organization, distribution, and metadata reference.

References:

Deichmann, U. 1994. A medium resolution population database for Africa, Database documentation and digital database, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Deichmann, U. and L. Eklundh. 1991. Global digital datasets for land degradation studies: A GIS approach, GRID Case Study Series No. 4, Global Resource Information Database, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.

UNEP. 1997. World Atlas of Desertification, 2nd Ed., United Nations Environment Programme, Edward Arnold Publishers, London.

WRI. 1995. Africa data sampler, Digital database and documentation, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.

This statistic presents the median age of the world population from 1990 to 2015 and a forecast until 2100, by fertility variant. In 2100, the median age of the world population is predicted to be 26 years old at a constant fertility variant.

This data base contains gridded (one degree by one degree) information on the world-wide distribution of the population for 1990 and country-specific information on the percentage of the country's population present in each grid cell (Li, 1996a). Secondly, the data base contains the percentage of a country's total area in a grid cell and the country's percentage of the grid cell that is terrestrial (Li, 1996b). Li (1996b) also developed an indicator signifying how many countries are represented in a grid cell and if a grid cell is part of the sea; this indicator is only relevant for the land, countries, and sea-partitioning information of the grid cell. Thirdly, the data base includes the latitude and longitude coordinates of each grid cell; a grid code number, which is a translation of the latitude/longitude value and is used in the Global Emission Inventory Activity (GEIA) data bases; the country or region's name; and the United Nations three-digit country code that represents that name. For access to the data files, click this link to the CDIAC data transition website: http://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/ftp/db1016/

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains global Population Distribution (1990), Terrestrial Area and Country Name Information on a One by One Degree Grid Cell Basis.