Hemispheres Magazine

Depending on who you talk to, the earth’s population rose to 7 billion very recently or sometime last summer, or maybe in 2011. Regardless, that’s an increase of 1 billion since 1999. But while such a figure might suggest that we’ll all be living nose-to-nose in a few decades, the rate of population growth has actually been falling since the 1960s—meaning that while there may be more people on the planet, those people, as individuals, are making fewer babies. In honor of that milestone, here’s a whirlwind tour of today’s population trends.

FOUR MOST POPULOUS NATIONS ON EARTH (estimate, as of July 2012)

China
POPULATION: 1,343,239,923 / FERTILITY RATE: 1.6 births per woman / LIFE EXPECTANCY: 74.8 years

India
POPULATION: 1,205,073,612 / FERTILITY RATE: 2.6 births per woman / LIFE EXPECTANCY: 67.1 years

United States
POPULATION: 313,847,465 / FERTILITY RATE: 2.1 births per woman / LIFE EXPECTANCY: 78.5 years

Indonesia
POPULATION: 248,645,008 / FERTILITY RATE: 2.2 births per woman / LIFE EXPECTANCY: 71.6 years

DATA VISUALIZATION BY CATALOGTREE

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