The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1840 until 1910, Russia's fertility rate was relatively consistent, remaining between 6.7 and 7.4 children per woman during this time. Between 1910 and 1920, the fertility rate drops sharply as a result of the First World War and Russian Revolution (for individual years of WWI, the fertility rate dropped as low as 3.4). From 1920 to 1930 the fertility rate returns above 6 again, however a gradual decline then begins, and by the end of the Second World War, the Russian segment of the Soviet Union's fertility rate was below 2. The population experienced a relatively small 'baby boom' in the two decades following the war, but then the fertility rate dropped again, most sharply between 1990 and 1995 at the end of the Soviet Union's reign. Russia's fertility rate reached its lowest point in 2000 when it fell to just 1.25 children per woman, but in the past two decades it has risen again, and is expected to reach 1.8 in 2020.

This graph shows the total population of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the years between 1922 and 1935, as well as the total number of males and females. After the First World War the Baltic states began claiming their independence from tsarist Russia, as the events of the Russian Revolution took place. Inter-war Estonia The Estonian War of Independence from 1918 to 1920 led to the country's first period of independence, until it became occupied by the Soviet Union again in 1940 during the Second World War. After Estonia gained independence the country experienced a period of political turmoil, including a failed coup d'etat in 1924, and was hit hard by the Great Depression in 1929 before things became more stable in the mid 1930s. Between 1939 and 1945 Estonia's population was devastated by the Second World War, with some estimates claiming that as many as 7.3 percent of all civilians perished as a result of the conflict. From the graph we can see the population grew by 119 thousand people during the 12 years shown, growing from 1.107 million to 1.126 million. The number of women was also higher than the number of men during this time, by 67 thousand in 1922 and 68 thousand in 1934. Inter-war Latvia For Latvia, Independence was a hard-won struggle that had devastated the population in the late 1910s. Similarly to Estonia, the advent of independence brought many challenges to Latvia, and a period of political and economic turmoil followed, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression in 1929. After economic recovery began in 1933, and a coup d'etat established stricter control in 1934, the Latvian economy and political landscape became more stable and the quality of life improved. This lasted until the Second World War, where Latvia became one of the staging grounds of Germany's war against Soviet Russia, and approximately 12.5 percent of all civilians died. From the data we can see that Latvia's population between 1925 and 1935 grew steadily by 95,000 in this decade, with the number of men and women growing at a similar rate. Inter-war Lithuania Lithuania's experience in the interwar period was slightly different to that of Latvia and Estonia. The end of the First World War led to a growing movement for independence from German, Russian or Polish influence, however these countries were reluctant to cede control to one another, and independence was finally achieved in 1922. A right wing dictatorship was established in 1926, which maintained political and civil control until the outbreak of the Second World War, however interference from other nations, particularly Germany, was ever-present in Lithuanian economic activity. From the graph we have only one set of figures, showing that the Lithuanian population was just over 2 million in 1929, with approximately 5 percent more women than men. World War II again devastated Lithuania's population, with almost 14.4 percent of the entire population falling during the conflict.

In 1750, when Finland was part of the Duchy of Sweden, and had a total population of just 422 thousand. Over the next 55 years the population grows steadily and reaches 896 thousand people, before it drops to 863 thousand in 1810. The Finnish borders did expand during the early 1800s, adding 12,000 people in 1809 and 185 thousand in 1811, however the dip in the graph most probably occurs as a result of the Finnish War, fought between Sweden and Russia in 1808 and 1809, and this war resulted in Finland becoming a part of the Russian Empire. From 1810 to 1865 the population then grows steadily again, until 1870 when it dips again from 1.84 million to 1.77 million. This second dip in population size is due to the Finnish famine of 1866-68, which resulted in the fatalities of around 8.5% of the entire Finnish population.

Throughout the twentieth century and until now the population has grown with each entry in the graph. Finland gained independence in 1918 after a brief civil war, and it was also heavily involved in fighting against Russia in World War II, and between 85 and 90 thousand people (2.3 to 2.6 percent of the total population) are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war. In spite of this the population has grown at a consistent rate (although the graph appears skewed as the intervals change from 10 years to 5 years in 1950), and the total population is expected to reach 5.5 million in 2020

During the eighteenth century, it is estimated that France's population grew by roughly fifty percent, from 19.7 million in 1700, to 29 million by 1800. In France itself, the 1700s are remembered for the end of King Louis XIV's reign in 1715, the Age of Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. During this century, the scientific and ideological advances made in France and across Europe challenged the leadership structures of the time, and questioned the relationship between monarchial, religious and political institutions and their subjects. France was arguably the most powerful nation in the world in these early years, with the second largest population in Europe (after Russia); however, this century was defined by a number of costly, large-scale conflicts across Europe and in the new North American theater, which saw the loss of most overseas territories (particularly in North America) and almost bankrupted the French crown. A combination of regressive taxation, food shortages and enlightenment ideologies ultimately culminated in the French Revolution in 1789, which brought an end to the Ancien Régime, and set in motion a period of self-actualization.

War and peace

After a volatile and tumultuous decade, in which tens of thousands were executed by the state (most infamously: guillotined), relative stability was restored within France as Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, and the policies of the revolution became enforced. Beyond France's borders, the country was involved in a series of large scale wars for two almost decades, and the First French Empire eventually covered half of Europe by 1812. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated outright, the empire was dissolved, and the monarchy was restored to France; nonetheless, a large number of revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms remained in effect afterwards, and the ideas had a long-term impact across the globe. France experienced a century of comparative peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars; there were some notable uprisings and conflicts, and the monarchy was abolished yet again, but nothing on the scale of what had preceded or what was to follow. A new overseas colonial empire was also established in the late 1800s, particularly across Africa and Southeast Asia. Through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, France had the second largest population in Europe (after Russia), however political instability and the economic prioritization of Paris meant that the entire country did not urbanize or industrialize at the same rate as the other European powers. Because of this, Germany and Britain entered the twentieth century with larger populations, and other regions, such as Austria or Belgium, had overtaken France in terms of industrialization; the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War was also a major contributor to this.

World Wars and contemporary France

Coming into the 1900s, France had a population of approximately forty million people (officially 38 million* due to to territorial changes), and there was relatively little growth in the first half of the century. France was comparatively unprepared for a large scale war, however it became one of the most active theaters of the First World War when Germany invaded via Belgium in 1914, with the ability to mobilize over eight million men. By the war's end in 1918, France had lost almost 1.4 million in the conflict, and approximately 300,000 in the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed. Germany invaded France again during the Second World War, and occupied the country from 1940, until the Allied counter-invasion liberated the country during the summer of 1944. France lost around 600,000 people in the course of the war, over half of which were civilians. Following the war's end, the country experienced a baby boom, and the population grew by approximately twenty million people in the next fifty years (compared to just one million in the previous fifty years). Since the 1950s, France's economy quickly grew to be one of the strongest in the world, despite losing the vast majority of its overseas colonial empire by the 1970s. A wave of migration, especially from these former colonies, has greatly contributed to the growth and diversity of France's population today, which stands at over 65 million people in 2020.

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 European countries in search of work, facilitated by Pola...

In 1800, the population of Latvia was approximately 591,000, a number which would grow steadily throughout the 19th century as reforms in agrarian law and steady improvements in standards of living and production allowed for a significant expansion in population. However, the population of Latvia would peak at just under 2.5 million in 1909, before falling sharply in the First World War. As the battlefield between the German and Russian Empires, Latvia and the other Baltic states were the site of widespread combat, attacks on civilians, and scorched earth campaigns, devastating the country. Even many of those who did not lose their lives in the war were forced to evacuate under orders from the Russian Empire, leading hundreds of thousands to flea eastward. As a result, by the end of the First World War, the population of Latvia would fall to approximately 1.8 million, and would not recover to pre-war population levels until the 1980s.

Following the end of the First World War, Latvia's population would remain largely stagnant at this level, rising slightly before falling back down in the Second World War. However, population growth would increase rapidly in the post-war years, as rapid industrialization by the Soviet Union and sharp decreases in mortality as mass immunization and vaccination would allow for the population to return to pre-World War levels by the 1980s. Latvia's population would begin to decline rapidly with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, as significant unemployment and economic turmoil would lead large numbers of Latvians to migrate west to the European Union in search of work, particularly so following Latvia's inclusion into the Schengen Area in 2003. As a result, in 2020, Latvia is estimated to have a population of just under 1.9 million.

In 1800, the population of the modern-day territory of Iran was approximately 6.3 million. This figure would see modest growth throughout the 19th century, as several wars and a mass famine in 1870-1871 (modern estimates put its death toll at around 1.5 million people) were largely balanced out by a surge in migration to Iran; this migration came as the Russian Empire expanded into the Caucuses, and caused a wave of refugees to flee southwards to avoid forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing in the North Caucasus region, particularly from 1864 onwards. As a result, the population of Iran reached ten million by the turn of the 20th century.

Twentieth century growth Iran’s population would begin to grow rapidly in the 20th century, as the discovery of oil in the country in 1908 led to an economic boom, and the socio-economic reforms implemented under Reza Shah would see a number of medical and healthcare advancements across the country. Although unpopular with religious fundamentalists, Reza Shah's reforms had long-term influence on the demographic development of Iran, even after his abdication in 1941. Following the Second World War, Iran became increasingly westernized and developed relatively strong relations with the U.S.; however, western influence, economic imbalances and the oppression of the Mohammed Reza Shah's regime became the driving forces behind the Iranian Revolution, which was one of the most significant moments in the history of the region.

Growth after the Revolution The 1979 Iranian Revolution saw the removal of the Shah and an end to Iran's so called westernization; the monarchy was replaced by an Islamic, theocratic regime led by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During Khomeini's decade in charge he oversaw Iran's transition into an Islamic Republic, which implemented radical political and cultural changes in the country, and this coincided with an increased population growth rate in the 1980s. This growth was promoted by the Iranian government, who encouraged a baby boom during the Iran–Iraq War between 1980 and 1988, as part of an effort to increase future Iranian military manpower. As a result of this strategy, the population of Iran would grow from approximately 38.6 million in 1980 to over 56 million just a decade later. Following the implementation of a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1988, population growth in Iran would slow, as economic sanctions and government implementation of family planning policies would lead to a drop in fertility. Population growth has continued steadily into the 21st century, however, and in 2020, Iran is estimated to have a population of 84 million.

In 1844, Romania had a population of just 3.6 million people. During the early entries in this data, Romania's borders were very different and much smaller than today, and control of this area often switched hands between the Austrian, Ottoman and Russian empires. The populations during this time are based on estimates made for incomplete census data, and they show that the population grows from 3.6 million in 1844, doubling to 7.2 million in 1912, part of this growth is due to a high natural birth rate during this period, but also partly due to the changing of Romania's borders and annexation of new lands. During this time Romania gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire as a result of the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, and experienced a period of increased stability and progress.

Between 1912 and 1930 the population of Romania grew by over 10 million people. The main reason for this is the huge territories gained by Romania in the aftermath of the First World War. During the war Romania remained neutral for the first two years, after which it joined the allies; however, it was very quickly defeated and overrun by the Central Powers, and in total it lost over 600 thousand people as a direct result of the war. With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires after the war, Romania gained almost double it's territory, which caused the population to soar to 18.1 million in 1930. The population then decreases by 1941 and again by 1948, as Romania seceded territory to neighboring countries and lost approximately half a million people during the Second World War. From 1948 onwards the population begins to grow again, reaching it's peak at 23.5 million people in 1990.

Like many other Eastern European countries, there was very limited freedom of movement from Romania during the Cold War, and communist rule was difficult for the Romanian people. The Romanian Revolution in 1989 ended communist rule in the country, Romania transitioned to a free-market society and movement from the country was allowed. Since then the population has fallen each year as more and more Romanians move abroad in search of work and opportunities. The population is expected to fall to 19.2 million in 2020, which is over 4 million fewer people than it had in 1990.

Over the course of the long nineteenth century, Estonia's population almost tripled, from 0.33 million in 1800, to over one million at the outbreak of the First World War. Throughout this time, Estonia was a part of the Russian Empire, however Germany then annexed the region during the First World War; when the German army eventually retreated in 1918, Estonian forces prevented Russia from re-taking the area in the Estonian War of Independence, and an independent Estonian Republic was gradually established between 1918 and 1920. Relative to its size and population, Estonia developed into a prosperous and peaceful nation in the interwar period, and Estonian language and culture thrived, although political stability proved difficult for the Baltic state.

Estonia in WWII Estonia's independence was short lived, as the country was then annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviets. The invasion was achieved with little-to-no conflict, as Estonia capitulated when faced with the vastly superior military and navy of the Soviet Union. Annexation became official in June 1940; a puppet, communist government was quickly established, and many military and political rivals were imprisoned or executed under Soviet control. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union the following year, they quickly took control of Estonia, but simply replaced the Soviet Union's rule with their own, and did not grant re-establish sovereignty as many Estonians had expected or hoped for. By the war's end, Estonia suffered approximately 83,000 deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union and Germany, with almost 50,000 of these civilian deaths, and the rest were fatalities of Estonian soldiers who were forced to fight in other nations' armies.

Post-war Estonia Following the war, Estonia remained under Soviet control, and between 1950 and 1990, the population of Estonia grew steadily, from 1.1 million to almost 1.6 million. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Estonia established a rapid, but peaceful independence in 1991; and the population dropped by roughly ten percent by the end of the century. This was mostly due to non-Estonians returning to their country or region of origin, although a wave of Estonian emigration soon followed. Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, and from 2000 until 2015, Estonia's population continued to fall, reaching just 1.3 million people in 2015. Recent years, however, have seen a reversal in this trend, with limited growth since 2015; although demographers predict that Estonia's population will drop below one million people in the next half-century. The past three decades have marked the longest continuous period in the past 800 years, where the region of Estonia was not under German, Polish, Russian or Scandinavian control.

Bulgaria, with the help of the Russian Empire, achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. In the decades before independence, Bulgaria's population had remained between 2.2 and 2.8 million people, and growth was much slower then the following century. Although most at the time assumed that it would become a Russian ally, Bulgaria defied the expectations and aligned itself with the western powers, and developed into a modern European state by the turn in the late 1800s. Bulgaria at war In the early twentieth century Bulgaria was involved in both World Wars, as well as two Balkan Wars. The Balkan states were unhappy with the borders assigned to them by the western powers, and instead wanted to re-draw them based on the dispersal of ethnic groups. This led to the first Balkan War in 1912, which saw Bulgaria fight alongside Greece and Serbia against the Ottomans. Bulgaria fought the second Balkan War on all sides, this time against Greece, Serbia, Romania and the Ottomans, as the dispute over borders continued. Bulgaria was defeated this time, and sustained heavy casualties, amassing in 58 thousand fatalities and over 100 thousand wounded in the two wars.

In the First World War, Bulgaria remained neutral at first, in order to recover from the previous wars, but then aligned itself with the Central powers in 1915, and played a vital role in maintaining their control in the Balkans. While Bulgaria was initially successful, its allies weakened as the war progressed, and then Bulgaria eventually succumbed to Allied forces and surrendered in 1918, with almost 200 thousand Bulgarians dying as a result of the war. The interwar years was a period of political and economic turmoil, and when control was re-established, Bulgaria was then able to maintain it's neutrality throughout most of the Second World War, (although there was some conflict and bombings in certain areas). Rise and fall of communism After the war, Bulgaria became a communist state, and life became harsh for the civil population there until the late 1950s when the standard of living rose again. In the late 1980s, like many Eastern European countries, Bulgaria experienced economic decline as the communist system began to collapse. Political failures also contributed to this, and approximately 300 thousand Bulgarian Turks migrated to Turkey, greatly weakening the agricultural economy. This trend of mass migration abroad continued after the fall of the iron curtain, as well as the rise of unemployment. Bulgaria reached it's peak population size in 1985 at 8.98 million inhabitants, but then the number decreases each year, and is expected to be 6.94 million in 2020. This drop in population size has been attributed to the economic collapse at the end of communism in Eastern Europe, causing many to leave the country in search of work elsewhere. Bulgaria also has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with 8.7 births per 1,000 people per year (in 2018).

The First World War saw the mobilization of more than 65 million soldiers, and the deaths of almost 15 million soldiers and civilians combined. Approximately 8.8 million of these deaths were of military personnel, while six million civilians died as a direct result of the war; mostly through hunger, disease and genocide. The German army suffered the highest number of military losses, totaling at more than two million men. Turkey had the highest civilian death count, largely due to the mass extermination of Armenians, as well as Greeks and Assyrians. Varying estimates suggest that Russia may have suffered the highest number of military and total fatalities in the First World War. However, this is complicated by the subsequent Russian Civil War and Russia's total specific to the First World War remains unclear to this day.

Proportional deaths In 1914, Central and Eastern Europe was largely divided between the empires of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, while the smaller Balkan states had only emerged in prior decades with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. For these reasons, the major powers in the east were able to mobilize millions of men from across their territories, as Britain and France did with their own overseas colonies, and were able to utilize their superior manpower to rotate and replace soldiers, whereas smaller nations did not have this luxury. For example, total military losses for Romania and Serbia are around 12 percent of Germany's total military losses; however, as a share of their total mobilized forces these countries lost roughly 33 percent of their armies, compared to Germany's 15 percent mortality rate. The average mortality rate of all deployed soldiers in the war was around 14 percent.

Unclarity in the totals Despite ending over a century ago, the total number of deaths resulting from the First World War remains unclear. The impact of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as various classifications of when or why fatalities occurred, has resulted in varying totals with differences ranging in the millions. Parallel conflicts, particularly the Russian Civil War, have also made it extremely difficult to define which conflicts the fatalities should be attributed to. Since 2012, the totals given by Hirschfeld et al in Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War have been viewed by many in the historical community as the most reliable figures on the subject.

From 1800 until the late twentieth century, there was a steady increase in Afghanistan's population. Throughout the nineteenth century, Afghanistan became a battleground for the British Empire, who tried to control the area in order to prevent Russian expansion towards the British Raj. Despite resisting the British invasion in the first Anglo-Afghan War, (where the British Army was almost completely wiped out), the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1880 saw Britain seize control of the region. In contrast to the neighboring colonies on the Indian subcontinent, Britain did not colonize Afghanistan for economic purposes, therefore they did not invest in agriculture or infrastructure, nor introduce medicine in the same way they did in the Raj, and focused only on Afghanistan's international affairs. Independence and progress The Third Anglo-Afghan War, where Afghan forces invaded British India in 1919, resulted in Afghanistan's independence finally being declared after two months of conflict. The next decade saw some major reforms that attempted to modernize Afghan society, (notable progress was made for women's rights and education) however this alienated many conservative and religious tribes, and a civil war broke out in 1928. After the war (and brief usurpation) the new King of Afghanistan, Nadir Khan, consolidated power, and also moved to modernize the country, but more gradually than his predecessors in order to avoid further alienation and conflict. Khan's approach remained in place until the 1970s, when a bloodless coup established a republic. The republic never achieved political stability, and the Sauri Revolution of 1978 resulted in the formation of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Continuous war Despite some progressive reforms, such as banning forced marriages and opening a space for women in politics, the determination to promote state atheism combined with the country's economic dependence on the Soviet Union led to serious opposition from Afghan people, particularly in rural areas. On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union (backed by the Afghan government) invaded the country, and the ensuing decade-long guerilla war resulted in as many as two million fatalities and three million wounded, as well as two million internally displaced persons and five million refugees abroad. Soviet withdrawal was seen as a western victory, as they had supported the Taliban in their fight against the Soviets, however a decade later the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda suspects to the US, following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. This led to US and British forces launching Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, and an intensive bombing campaign followed, destroying many major cities in the country. The Taliban government was toppled in December 2001, and in 2002 a western-led rebuilding of the country began. Over the past two decades, many displaced Afghans have returned home, leading to some economic growth, however guerilla fighting continues and there is a strong military presence in the country (including many Taliban controlled areas). In 2020, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and most politically unstable countries in the world, however the rapid population growth experienced in recent decades is expected to continue well into the future, as improvements in medical care and humanitarian aid become more widespread across the country.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the total number of independent nation states in Europe has almost doubled, from 24 countries in 1900 to 45 today. At the beginning of this period, much of Central and Eastern Europe was split between the empires of Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Ottomans, and Russia. The dissolution of these empires in the aftermath of the First World War resulted in the restoration or creation of several independent states, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia. During the interwar period, there were generally 33 countries in Europe, before the Second World War saw Germany and the Soviet Union annex most of the territories between them, and control of these regions swapped between the two during the remainder of the war. Germany also invaded several Western European countries, and there were fewer than 20 independent countries in Europe at the peak of the war. Post-war Europe The post-war period then saw some major restructuring of Europe's borders, and most of the defeated Axis governments fell under Allied influence. However, there was then a split between the leading Allied Powers, and the continent was divided between the east and west. The communist, eastern countries, known as the Eastern Bloc, mostly fell under the influence of the Soviet Union; whereas the West remained largely democratic and was under American influence (but to a lesser extent). Both sides of Europe prospered throughout the post-war period, but the Eastern Bloc economies eventually collapsed or stagnated, and independence movements gained more momentum. Communist regimes across Europe began collapsing in 1989, before the Soviet Union's dissolution in late 1991. Soviet dissolution resulted in the formation of 15 separate countries, seven of which were in Europe, while Yugoslavia's eventually resulted in seven new states. Post-communist separation While the borders of Western Europe remained fairly stable throughout the entire period, Eastern Europe's changed greatly. A large part of this can be attributed to cultural and historical differences between different ethnic groups in the region, who were often forced to share their lands under various empires or world powers; the fall of communism provided an opportunity for these groups to separate, but it was not always a peaceful process. This was most notable in the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, where some states achieved independence through violence, while others descended into it thereafter. Communism's collapse also resulted in the expansion of European integration, and many eastern countries joined the European Union in the early-2000s; this resulted in a mass exodus of economic migrants from the former-Eastern Bloc, which has had a significant demographic and economic impact on both sides of the continent. Generally, political relations across the east have improved greatly in recent years, and prosperity is growing. However, there has been a noticeable rise in authoritarian leadership across Eastern Europe, and Russian interference in foreign politics is growing; it remains to be seen what impact this will have on the stability of the region.