Until the 1800s, population growth was incredibly slow on a global level. The global population was estimated to have been around 188 million people in the year 1CE, and did not reach one billion until around 1803. However, since the 1800s, a phenomenon known as the demographic transition has seen population growth skyrocket, reaching eight billion people in 2023, and this is expected to peak at over 10 billion in the 2080s.

The earliest point where scientists can make reasonable estimates for the population of global regions is around 10,000 years before the Common Era (or 12,000 years ago). Estimates suggest that Asia has consistently been the most populated continent, and the least populated continent has generally been Oceania (although it was more heavily populated than areas such as North America in very early years). Population growth was very slow, but an increase can be observed between most of the given time periods. There were, however, dips in population due to pandemics, the most notable of these being the impact of plague in Eurasia in the 14th century, and the impact of European contact with the indigenous populations of the Americas after 1492, where it took almost four centuries for the population of Latin America to return to its pre-1500 level. The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, which also coincided with a spike in population growth, due to the onset of the demographic transition. This wave of growth first spread across the most industrially developed countries in the 19th century, and the correlation between demographic development and industrial or economic maturity continued until today, with Africa being the final major region to begin its transition in the late-1900s.

Historical dataset showing total population for the world by year from 1950 to 2025.

Global historical population data

The population data starts from -1000000 BC to 1990 with the average number of people. There are several population data from the different reports such as: Deevey...

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.

This dataset provides historical data on the global population from 1950 to 2023, which can be used to analyze global demographic trends over this significant period of time. The data is presented in an easy-to-understand format, allowing researchers, social scientists, and policy practitioners to explore and better understand global population dynamics.

The total population in World was estimated at 8142.1 million people in 2024, according to the latest census figures and projections from Trading Economics. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for World Population.

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.

Actual value and historical data chart for World Population Female Percent Of Total

Throughout most of human history, global population growth was very low; between 10,000BCE and 1700CE, the average annual increase was just 0.04 percent. Therefore, it took several thousand years for the global population to reach one billion people, doing so in 1803. However, this period marked the beginning of a global phenomenon known as the demographic transition, from which point population growth skyrocketed. With the introduction of modern medicines (especially vaccination), as well as improvements in water sanitation, food supply, and infrastructure, child mortality fell drastically and life expectancy increased, causing the population to grow. This process is linked to economic and technological development, and did not take place concurrently across the globe; it mostly began in Europe and other industrialized regions in the 19thcentury, before spreading across Asia and Latin America in the 20th century. As the most populous societies in the world are found in Asia, the demographic transition in this region coincided with the fastest period of global population growth. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region at the earliest stage of this transition. As population growth slows across the other continents, with the populations of the Americas, Asia, and Europe expected to be in decline by the 2070s, Africa's population is expected to grow by three billion people by the end of the 21st century.

Historical dataset showing World population growth rate by year from 1961 to 2023.

This dataset on Kaggle offers a historical look at global population growth, spanning from 1952 to 2023. The data is provided in billions, allowing you to analyze trends and track humanity's population increase over the past seven decades.

What's included:

• Year: Identifies the specific year for each data point.
• Population (Billions): Represents the global population in billions of people for that corresponding year.

Benefits of using this dataset:

• Understand population trends: Analyze how the world's population has grown over time.
• Informative for research: Useful for research projects in demographics, sociology, economics, and sustainability studies.
• Data visualization potential: Create charts and graphs to visualize population growth patterns.
• Freely available and reusable: Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 IGO, allowing for broad use and attribution.

Note: This dataset is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 IGO. This means you can use, share, and adapt the data freely, as long as you provide attribution to the source.

Until the 19th century, population growth across the globe was incredibly low. In the first millennium of the Common Era, the world's population grew by an average of just 0.02 percent each year. In Western Europe and Asia, the populations on either side of the millennium were almost the exact same. It was only in the centuries that followed where population growth began to increase, however it was still very low until the 1800s.

Beginning in the 19th century, a phenomenon known as the demographic transition took place, and the world's population began to grow exponentially. The population of the Americas in particular saw the highest average growth rates in these years, due to the high levels of migration and their smaller starting population size in 1820 compared to most other regions. Overall, the average global population growth rate in the period between 1820 and 1998 was roughly six times higher than the preceding eight centuries, and almost 50 times higher than the millennium before that.

Historical dataset showing World population density by year from 1961 to 2022.

The total population in the United States was estimated at 341.2 million people in 2024, according to the latest census figures and projections from Trading Economics. This dataset provides - United States Population - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

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.

Population density (people per sq. km of land area) in World was reported at 61.6 sq. Km in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. World - Population density (people per sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

Population ages 70-74, male (% of male population) in World was reported at 2.5312 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. World - Population ages 70-74, male (% of male population) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on November of 2025.

Map containing historical census data from 1900 - 2000 throughout the western United States at the county level. Data includes total population, population density, and percent population change by decade for each county. Population data was obtained from the US Census Bureau and joined to 1:2,000,000 scale National Atlas counties shapefile.

1Historical estimates for 1–1950 CE are from refs. [72]–[78]. The UN global census data for 1955–2012 is from ref. [24], which provides an open-access web-based summary of these data. The historical world population estimates are also summarized by Cohen [23] in his Appendix 2. Note that the average population values—which are used to calculate (the distance for a given model population trajectory from the average population estimate/census value for the 1750–2012 data)—exclude duplicate estimates, in which a later study relies on an earlier study's result (e.g., Kremer's extensive use of the earlier estimates from McEvedy & Jones [74], [77]).