Population - statistics and facts
The world’s population is continuously rising and has nearly tripled since 1950. In
2010, the total world population was 6.9 billion people. Mainly due to the rapid growth of developing countries, the human population will continue to grow in the coming decades and is expected to exceed 10 billion by 2090 according to a
global population forecast by the United Nations.
The three most populous countries are currently:
China,
India and the
United States of America. While China and India both top the one billion mark, the
population of the United States comprises 312 million people.
The U.S. population grew 0.86 percent in 2009. A growth rate that is lower than the world average but higher than that of most other developed countries. The U.S.
Census Bureau predicts further growth in the coming decades and expects the population of the USA to reach 439 million people in 2050.
California, Texas and New York currently top the
population ranking of U.S. states. The least populous states are Vermont, Wyoming and, though technically not a state, the District of Columbia.
More than 80 percent of the
American population lives in urban areas, compared to just 50 percent of the world population. The
most populous metro areas of the United States are New York, Los Angeles and Chicago followed by Dallas, Philadelphia and Houston.
Photo: Thomas Schmidtkonz, wikimedia/gnu