How many persons in the world

Given a current global population of about 7. Discoveries now suggest modern Homo sapiens existed much earlier, around , B. This major change in our understanding of human existence spurred new calculations and consultations with experts, resulting in an estimate that about billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth. How did we reach this number? Dudley Poston Jr. We also estimate that by another 4 billion births will increase the number of people who have ever lived on Earth to about billion.

To be sure, calculating the number of people who have ever lived is part science and part art. Still, with some assumptions about population size throughout human history, we can get a rough idea of this number. Any estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived depends essentially on three factors: the length of time that humans are thought to have been on Earth, the average size of the population at different periods, and the number of births per 1, population during each of those periods.

The estimate, however, does not depend on the number of deaths during any period of time. The oldest hominins are thought to have appeared as early as 7 million B. The earliest species of the Homo genus appeared around 2 million to 1. Current evidence supports modern Homo sapiens appearing around , B. Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa, though the exact location has long been debated.

Diverse groups are thought to have lived in different locations across Africa for the first two-thirds of human history. Around B. Table 1 displays very rough figures representing averages of an estimate of ranges given by the United Nations and other sources.

Slow population growth over the 8,year period—from an estimated 5 million in B. In all likelihood, human populations in different regions grew or declined in response to food availability, the variability of animal herds, periods of peace or hostility, and changing weather and climatic conditions.

Poston Jr. In any case, life was short. Infant mortality in the early days of human life would be high, probably infant deaths per Children were probably economic liabilities in hunter-gatherer societies; this might have led to infanticide, which in turn would require a disproportionately high birth rate to maintain population growth. By , the world's population had risen to million, although the Black Plague, which began in A. By , the world's population passed 1 billion and continued to grow to its current total of 5.

World Population sections. Top 20 Largest Countries by Population live. Source: Worldometer www. World Population Prospects: The Revision. Medium-fertility variant.

Year 1. Rate Med. Virgin Islands , Share This! Latin America and the Caribbean. Northern America. United States. DR Congo. United Kingdom. South Africa. South Korea. Saudi Arabia. North Korea. Sri Lanka. Burkina Faso. South Sudan. Dominican Republic. Czech Republic Czechia. United Arab Emirates. Papua New Guinea. Sierra Leone. Hong Kong. El Salvador. State of Palestine.

Costa Rica.