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.

At the end of the Revolutionary Period in United States history, the majority of white settlers in the United States of America had English heritage. The Thirteen Colonies, which claimed independence in 1776, was part of the British Empire until this point - English settlers and their descendants made up over 60 percent of the population by 1790. The English were the ethnic majority (among whites) in all states except Pennsylvania, which had a similarly-sized German population, while New York had a sizeable Dutch population as it was a former Dutch colony. The second-largest group was the Irish, where those from both the island's north and south made up a combined 10 percent of the population, followed by the Scottish and Germans at over eight percent each. Outside of the United States, the French and Spanish territories that would later be incorporated into the Union were majority French and Spanish - despite their large size they were relatively sparsely populated. The composition of the U.S. population would change drastically throughout the 19th century due largely to waves of migration from Europe.

Comprehensive demographic dataset for European Village, Palm Coast, FL, US including population statistics, household income, housing units, education levels, employment data, and transportation with year-over-year changes.

In the United States in the year 1900, approximately 88 percent of the population was White, while most of the remainder was Black. The Native American population stood at roughly 270,000 people in 1900, which was equal to just 0.35 percent of the total population - the indigenous population of North America was estimated to have been around 3-4 million people at the point of European contact in the early-16th century, however a mixture of disease, conflict, and displacement saw their numbers fall to a fraction of this level four centuries later.

Investigating genetic architecture of complex traits in ancestrally diverse populations is imperative to understand the etiology of disease. However, the current paucity of genetic research in people of African and Latin American ancestry, Hispanic and indigenous peoples in the United States is likely to exacerbate existing health disparities for many common diseases. The Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology, Phase II (PAGE II), Study was initiated in 2013 by the National Human Genome Research Institute to expand our understanding of complex trait loci in ethnically diverse and well characterized study populations. To meet this goal, the Multi-Ethnic Genotyping Array (MEGA) was designed to substantially improve fine-mapping and functional discovery by increasing variant coverage across multiple ethnicities at known loci for metabolic, cardiovascular, renal, inflammatory, anthropometric, and a variety of lifestyle traits. Studying the frequency distribution of clinically relevant mutations, putative risk alleles, and known functional variants across multiple populations will provide important insight into the genetic architecture of complex diseases and facilitate the discovery of novel, sometimes population-specific, disease associations. DNA samples from 51,650 self-identified African ancestry (17,328), Hispanic/Latino (22,379), Asian/Pacific Islander (8,640), and American Indian (653) and an additional 2,650 participants of either South Asian or European ancestry, and other reference panels have been genotyped on MEGA by PAGE II. MEGA was designed as a new resource for studying ancestrally diverse populations. Here, we describe the methodology for selecting trait-specific content for use in multi-ethnic populations and how enriching MEGA for this content may contribute to deeper biological understanding of the genetic etiology of complex disease.

Large genome-wide association studies have reported hundreds of genetic markers associated with lipid levels. However, the discovery and estimated effect of variants at these loci, derived from samples of exclusively European descent, may not generalize to the majority of the world populations. We examined the collective strength of association among these loci in a diverse set of U.S. populations from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. We constructed a genetic risk score for each lipid outcome based on previously identified lipid-associated genetic markers, and examined the relationship between the genetic risk scores and corresponding outcomes. We discover this relationship was often moderated by race/ethnicity. Our findings provide insight into the generalizability and predictive utility of large sample size meta-analyses results when leveraging data from a single population. We hope these findings will encourage researchers to investigate genetic susceptibility in more diverse populations and explore the source of such discrepancies. Until then, we caution clinicians, genetic counselors, and genetic testing consumers when interpreting genetic data on complex traits.

This dataset includes all personal names listed in the Wikipedia category “American people by ethnic or national origin” and all subcategories fitting the pattern “American People of [ ] descent”, in total more than 25,000 individuals. Each individual is represented by a row, with columns indicating binary membership (0/1) in each ethnic/national category.

Ethnicity inference is an essential tool for identifying disparities in public health and social sciences. Existing datasets linking personal names to ethnic or national origin often neglect to recognize multi-ethnic or multi-national identities. Furthermore, existing datasets use coarse classification schemes (e.g. classifying both Indian and Japanese people as “Asian”) that may not be suitable for many research questions. This dataset remedies these problems by including both very fine-grain ethnic/national categories (e.g. Afghan-Jewish) and more broad ones (e.g. European). Users can chose the categories that are relevant to their research. Since many Americans on Wikipedia are associated with multiple overlapping or distinct ethnicities/nationalities, these multi-ethnic associations are also reflected in the data.

Data were obtained from the Wikipedia API and reviewed manually to remove stage names, pen names, mononyms, first initials (when full names are available on Wikipedia), nicknames, honorific titles, and pages that correspond to a group or event rather than an individual.

This dataset was designed for use in training classification algorithms, but may also be independently interesting inasmuch as it is a representative sample of Americans who are famous enough to have their own Wikipedia page, along with detailed information on their ethnic/national origins.

DISCLAIMER: Due to the incomplete nature of Wikipedia, data may not properly reflect all ethnic national associations for any given individual. For example, there is no guarantee that a given Cuban Jewish person will be listed in both the “American People of Cuban descent” and the “American People of Jewish descent” categories.

Lipid levels are important markers for the development of cardio-metabolic diseases. Although hundreds of associated loci have been identified through genetic association studies, the contribution of genetic factors to variation in lipids is not fully understood, particularly in U.S. minority groups. We performed genome-wide association analyses for four lipid traits in over 45,000 ancestrally diverse participants from the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study, followed by a meta-analysis with several European ancestry studies. We identified nine novel lipid loci, five of which showed evidence of replication in independent studies. Furthermore, we discovered one novel gene in a PrediXcan analysis, minority-specific independent signals at eight previously reported loci, and potential functional variants at two known loci through fine-mapping. Systematic examination of known lipid loci revealed smaller effect estimates in African American and Hispanic ancestry populations than those in Europeans, and better performance of polygenic risk scores based on minority-specific effect estimates. Our findings provide new insight into the genetic architecture of lipid traits and highlight the importance of conducting genetic studies in diverse populations in the era of precision medicine.

The population of Europe was estimated to be 745 million in 2024, an increase of around 4 million when compared with 2012. Over 35 years between 1950 and 1985, the population of Europe grew by approximately 157.8 million. But 35 years after 1985 it was estimated to have only increased by around 38.7 million. Since the 1960s, population growth in Europe has fallen quite significantly and was even negative during the mid-1990s. While population growth has increased slightly since the low of -0.07 percent in 1998, the growth rate for 2020 was just 0.04 percent. Which European country has the biggest population? As of 2024, the population of Russia was estimated to be approximately 144.8 million and was by far Europe's largest country in terms of population, with Turkey being the second-largest at over 87 million. While these two countries both have territory in Europe, however, they are both only partially in Europe, with the majority of their landmasses being in Asia. In terms of countries wholly located on the European continent, Germany had the highest population at 84.5 million, and was followed by the United Kingdom and France at 69.1 million and 66.5 million respectively. Characteristics of Europe's population There are approximately 384.6 million females in Europe, compared with 359.5 million males, a difference of around 25 million. In 1950, however, the male population has grown faster than the female one, with the male population growing by 104.7 million, and the female one by 93.6 million. As of 2024, the single year of age with the highest population was 37, at 10.6 million, while in the same year there were estimated to be around 136 thousand people aged 100 or over.

Custom Content Variants Before and After Design.

Abstract (en): This data collection represents a loose collaboration between Georgetown University's Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS) and the European Social Survey (ESS). The data in Part 1 are from the United States Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy (CID) Survey, which was conducted between mid-May and mid-July of 2005, and consists of in-person interviews with a representative sample of 1,001 Americans who responded to an 80-minute questionnaire. The CID survey is a study of American civic engagement, social capital, and democracy in comparative perspective, and it provides perspective on citizen participation in both the public and private realms. The CID survey is integrated with several elements of a module from the 2002 version of the ESS, which was administered in 22 European countries. In addition to the replicated questions from the ESS, the CID survey includes questions related to the themes of social capital, activities in formal clubs and organizations, informal social networks and activities, personal networks (strong and weak ties), the composition and diversity of ties and associations, trust (in other people, the community, institutions, and politicians), local democracy and participation, democratic values, political citizenship, social citizenship, views on immigration and diversity, political identification, ideology, mobilization and action, and tolerance (concerning views and attitudes, least-liked groups, and racial sterotypes). In order to facilitate and encourage the common use of several key variables, and to help individual users to avoid having to create certain scales and indices, the data in Part 1, Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Survey Data (US Only), also include the following constructed variables: generalized trust, political action, party identification, participation in voluntary organizations, citizenship norms, the diversity of social networks, racial prejudice/negative stereotypes, national pride, attitudes toward immigrants, and demographic factors. The data in Part 2, 2002 European Social Survey (ESS) Data Integrated with US Data, comprise the responses from the 2002 ESS merged with the responses from the US CID, but only contains the questions common to both the US CID and the 2002 ESS (without any constructed variables). The central aim of the ESS is to measure and explain how people's social values, cultural norms, and behavior patterns are distributed, the way in which they differ within and between nations, and the direction and speed at which they are changing. Data collection for the ESS takes place every two years, by means of face-to-face interviews of around an hour in duration. Demographic variables for Part 1 and Part 2 include race, gender, age, marital status, income, religious preference, and highest level of education. Although the sample used in Part 1 was designed with an equal probability of selection method sampling, some variations exist (e.g., variations in primary stratum size) resulting in the need for some minor weighting adjustments to achieve equal representation across the sample. Complete weighting information for Part 1 is located in the appendix of the codebook for Part 1. Additional information about the weights used in Part 2 may be obtained via the ESS Web site. ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Response Rates: The overall response rate was 40.03 percent. Adults, ages 18 and over, living in the contiguous United States. The study used a classic cluster sample design with an equal probability of selection method of sampling. Eligible respondents were household members, males or females, aged 18 years and older. Respondents were selected using the most recent birthday method. There was no substitution of respondents within households, and there was no substitution across households. The objective of this design was to provide an approximate self-weighting, or epsem, sample of households across the continental United States. The sample was designed specifically to represent the adult population residing in occupied residential housing unit...

Marker allocation used for design of MEGA.

The aim of this study was to identify the attitudes of the public in the United States and in 12 European countries towards foreign policy issues and transatlantic issues. The survey concentrated on issues such as: United States and European Union (EU) leadership and relations, favorability towards certain countries, institutions and people, security, cooperation and the perception of threat including issues of concern with Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia, energy dependence, economic downturn, and global warming, Turkey and Turkish accession to the EU, promotion of democracy in other countries, and the importance of economic versus military power. Several questions asked of respondents pertained to voting and politics including whether they discussed political matters with friends and whether they attempted to persuade others close to them to share their views on politics which they held strong opinions about, vote intention, their assessment of the current United States President and upcoming presidential election, political party attachment, and left-right political self-placement. Demographic and other background information includes age, gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation and participation, age when stopped full-time education and stage at which full-time education completed, occupation, number of people aged 18 years and older living in the household, type of locality, region of residence, prior travel to the United States or Europe, and language of interview.

Between 1500 and 1820, an estimated 2.58 million Europeans migrated to the Americas, namely from the British Isles, Portugal, Spain, France and Germany. Until the mid-1600s, the majority of European migrants were from the Iberian Peninsula, as Portugal and Spain had a 150 year head start over other European powers when building their overseas empires. However, by the end of the century, more settlers from the British Isles had emigrated to the New World than from Spain or Portugal; the majority of which migrated to British colonies in the Caribbean as indentured servants or prisoners. The 18th century also saw migrants from other European nations begin to migrate en masse, particularly those from France and the German states, although migration from the British Isles and Portugal remained at the highest levels.

In comparison to the almost 2.6 million Europeans migrants, it is estimated that over 8.6 million Africans were forced across the Atlantic during this time period, as part of the transatlantic slave trade. The first half of the 19th century saw the demise of the transatlantic slave trade, which was followed by an influx of white migration to the Americas from across Europe; this contributed heavily to reversing demographic trends and making those with African ancestry an ethnic minority in most American countries today.

Vor den Europawahlen von 1979 bis 2019 herausgegebene Parteiprogramme.Der Datensatz enthält eine verkodete Version der Parteiprogramme. Coded version of election programs. Manifestos of relevant parties issued ahead of the European elections between 1979 and 2019. Topics: Country in which the party ran in European Parliament elections; year of the first European Parliament elections in the member state; year of the country´s admittance to the EG/EU; party ID; election year; initials of the party; name of the party; percent-vote on national level; party family (parliamentary group) a party belongs to; number of seats in European Parliament; number of seats in European Parliament by country; type of manifesto; placement of Euromanifesto according to the coder on a left-right scale, on an environmental protection vs. economic growth scale, on a libertarian-authoritarian scale, on a religious-secular scale, on a state interventionism vs. free enterprise scale, on a multiculturalism vs. ethnocentrism scale, and on a pro-anti-EU-integration scale. Position in topics: foreign special relationships (general, to eastern European Countries of the EU and not in the EU, to Russia and to the USA); anti-imperialism; military; peace; internationalism; Europe; European Community/European Union; financing the EC/EU; reedom; human rights; democracy; constitutionalism; decentralization; transfer of power to the EC/EU; executive and administrative efficiency; political corruption; political authority; competences of the European Parliament, of the European Commission and of the European Council; voting procedures in the European Council; competences of the uropean Court of Justice and other EC/EU institutions; mentions of the European Central Bank; EC/EU enlargement; membership in the EU of east European countries and of Balkan countries currently not in the EU; membership of Turkey in the EU; complexity of the EC/EU political system; free enterprise; property-restitution; controlled economy; social ownership; mixed economy; publicly-owned industry; socialist property; economic planning; EC/EU structural funds; nationalization; privatisation; corporatism; market egulation; Marxist-analysis; incentives; Keynesian demand management; productivity; technology and infrastructure; protectionism; anti-growth economy; economic orthodoxy; economic goals; creating jobs; labour migration; single market; European monetary union/European currency; environmental protection; culture; social justice; welfare state, pensions, health care and nursing service, social housing, child care, job programs; education; multiculturalism; traditional morality; law and order; fight against terrorism; social harmony; national way of life; immigration; EU integration; labour groups; agriculture and farmers; middle class and professional groups; underprivileged minority groups (handicapped, homosexuals, immigrants and foreigners in the Manifesto countries and ethnic minorities of the Manifesto countries living abroad), non-economic demographic groups (women, old people, young people, linguistic groups); for Cyprus only: Cyprus issue. Computed indices: percentages of content codes separately on each political level; left-right position of party; planned economy dimension, market economy dimension, welfare dimension; pro-anti European integration dimension; summarized percentages of uncoded quasi-sentences. Additionally coded: Coder ID; region; country code (EMCS) plus election year; party code (EMCS) plus election year, total number of quasi-sentences. Inhaltsanalyse Content Coding 1200 Wahlprogramme/Manifeste von relevanten Parteien in der EU vor der Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament. Als relevante Parteien in der EG/EU waren Parteien definiert, die im Europäischen Parlament wenigstens einmal vertreten waren. 1200 election programs/manifestos of relevant parties in the EU published ahead of the election to the European Parliament in each EC/EU country between 1979 and 2019. Relevant parties in the EC/EU are parties that have been represented in the European Parliament at least once. Vollerhebung; Auswahlverfahren Kommentar: Totalerhebung von Parteimanifesten in der EU. Ausgangspunkt für die Verkodung eines Euromanifestos ist die erstmalige Wahl einer Partei in das Europäische Parlament.

IntroductionUnpaid care work is mainly performed by women, whose mental health is more affected by caregiving burden and work-family conflict compared to men. COVID-19 containment measures may have exacerbated existing gender inequalities in both unpaid care work and adverse mental health outcomes. This scoping review provides an overview of recent evidence on the impact of COVID-19 containment measures on unpaid care work and mental health for subgroups of caregivers at the intersection of gender and other social differences (e.g., ethnicity, age, class) in Europe.Methods and analysisOur study was informed and guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s methodological framework. We searched six academic databases (Medline, PsycInfo, Scopus, CINAHL, Social Sciences Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, ASSIA) and hand-searched the reference lists of selected articles to identify relevant peer-reviewed research articles published between 1 March 2020 and 7 September 2022. In addition, we conducted a grey literature search using Google Scholar and a targeted hand search on known international and European websites. We included studies that reported gender-disaggregated results on unpaid care work and mental health in the context of COVID-19 containment measures in Europe. Two reviewers independently screened all abstracts and full texts for eligibility and extracted the relevant data. The results were synthesised narratively.Results and discussionOur results suggest a greater gender gap in unpaid care work division and, to a lesser extent, in mental health, which is unfavourable towards women and mothers. Despite this, we see a break in the traditional division of childcare, with fathers taking on a greater role in family work, which makes us optimistic about the division of care work in the post-COVID-19 era. This research also shows that among European women, population groups often understudied, such as women who are single parents, disabled or of colour, have the highest increase in unpaid care work and greatest deterioration in wellbeing.

Brazil and the United States are the two most populous countries in the Americas today. In 1500, the year that Pedro Álvares Cabral made landfall in present-day Brazil and claimed it for the Portuguese crown, it is estimated that there were roughly one million people living in the region. Some estimates for the present-day United States give a population of two million in the year 1500, although estimates vary greatly. By 1820, the population of the U.S. was still roughly double that of Brazil, but rapid growth in the 19th century would see it grow 4.5 times larger by 1890, before the difference shrunk during the 20th century. In 2024, the U.S. has a population over 340 million people, making it the third most populous country in the world, while Brazil has a population of almost 218 million and is the sixth most populous. Looking to the future, population growth is expected to be lower in Brazil than in the U.S. in the coming decades, as Brazil's fertility rates are already lower, and migration rates into the United States will be much higher. Historical development The indigenous peoples of present-day Brazil and the U.S. were highly susceptible to diseases brought from the Old World; combined with mass displacement and violence, their population growth rates were generally low, therefore migration from Europe and the import of enslaved Africans drove population growth in both regions. In absolute numbers, more Europeans migrated to North America than Brazil, whereas more slaves were transported to Brazil than the U.S., but European migration to Brazil increased significantly in the early 1900s. The U.S. also underwent its demographic transition much earlier than in Brazil, therefore its peak period of population growth was almost a century earlier than Brazil. Impact of ethnicity The demographics of these countries are often compared, not only because of their size, location, and historical development, but also due to the role played by ethnicity. In the mid-1800s, these countries had the largest slave societies in the world, but a major difference between the two was the attitude towards interracial procreation. In Brazil, relationships between people of different ethnic groups were more common and less stigmatized than in the U.S., where anti-miscegenation laws prohibited interracial relationships in many states until the 1960s. Racial classification was also more rigid in the U.S., and those of mixed ethnicity were usually classified by their non-white background. In contrast, as Brazil has a higher degree of mixing between those of ethnic African, American, and European heritage, classification is less obvious, and factors such as physical appearance or societal background were often used to determine racial standing. For most of the 20th century, Brazil's government promoted the idea that race was a non-issue and that Brazil was racially harmonious, but most now acknowledge that this actually ignored inequality and hindered progress. Racial inequality has been a prevalent problem in both countries since their founding, and today, whites generally fare better in terms of education, income, political representation, and even life expectancy. Despite this adversity, significant progress has been made in recent decades, as public awareness of inequality has increased, and authorities in both countries have made steps to tackle disparities in areas such as education, housing, and employment.

In California in 2022, 20.5 percent of students enrolled in K-12 public schools were white, 11.9 percent were Asian, and 56.2 percent were Hispanic. In the United States overall, 44.7 percent of K-12 public school students were white, 5.5 percent were Asian, and 28.7 percent were Hispanic.

Approximately 41 million people immigrated to the United States of America between the years 1820 and 1957. During this time period, the United States expanded across North America, growing from 23 to 48 states, and the population grew from approximately 10 million people in 1820, to almost 180 million people by 1957. Economically, the U.S. developed from being an agriculturally focused economy in the 1820s, to having the highest GDP of any single country in the 1950s. Much of this expansion was due to the high numbers of agricultural workers who migrated from Europe, as technological advances in agriculture had lowered the labor demand. The majority of these migrants settled in urban centers, and this fueled the growth of the industrial sector.

American industrialization and European rural unemployment fuel migration The first major wave of migration came in the 1850s, and was fueled largely by Irish and German migrants, who were fleeing famine or agricultural depression at the time. The second boom came in the 1870s, as the country recovered from the American Civil War, and the Second Industrial Revolution took off. The final boom of the nineteenth century came in the 1880s, as poor harvests and industrialization in Europe led to mass emigration. Improvements in steam ship technology and lower fares led to increased migration from Eastern and Southern Europe at the turn of the century (particularly from Italy). War and depression reduces migration Migration to the U.S. peaked at the beginning of the 20th century, before it fluctuated greatly at the beginning of the 20th century. This was not only due to the disruptions to life in Europe caused by the world wars, but also the economic disruption of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The only period between 1914 and 1950 where migration was high was during the 1920s. However, the migration rate rose again in the late 1940s, particularly from Latin America and Asia. The historically high levels of migration from Europe has meant that the most common ethnicity in the U.S. has been non-Hispanic White since the early-colonial period, however increased migration from Latin America, Asia and Africa, and higher fertility rates among ethnic minorities, have seen the Whites' share of the total population fall in recent years (although it is still over three times larger than any other group.

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.