Population cartograms show us where the world’s people are

Geographical maps show us where the world’s landmasses are; not where people are. That means they don’t always give us an accurate picture of how global living standards are changing.

One way to understand the distribution of people worldwide is to redraw the world map – not based on the area but according to population.

This is shown here as a population cartogram: a geographical presentation of the world where the size of countries is not drawn according to the distribution of land but by the distribution of people. It’s shown for the year 2018.

As the population size rather than the territory is shown in this map, you can see some significant differences when you compare it to the standard geographical map we’re most familiar with. 

Small countries with a high population density increase in size in this cartogram relative to the world maps we are used to – look at Bangladesh, Taiwan, or the Netherlands. Large countries with a small population shrink in size – look for Canada, Mongolia, Australia, or Russia.

You can find more details on this cartogram in our article about it:

The world population has increased rapidly over the last few centuries

The speed of global population growth over the last few centuries has been staggering. For most of human history, the world population was well under one million.

As recently as 12,000 years ago, there were only 4 million people worldwide.

The chart shows the rapid increase in the global population since 1700. 

The one-billion mark wasn’t broken until the early 1800s. It was only a century ago that there were 2 billion people.

Since then, the global population has quadrupled to eight billion.

Around 108 billion people have ever lived on our planet. This means that today’s population size makes up 6.5% of the total number of people ever born.

This increase has been the result of advances in living conditions and health that reduced death rates – especially in children – and increases in life expectancy.

Population growth is no longer exponential – it peaked decades ago

There’s a popular misconception that the global population is growing exponentially. But it’s not.

While the global population is still increasing in absolute numbers, population growth peaked decades ago.

In the chart, we see the global population growth rate per year. This is based on historical UN estimates and its medium projection to 2100.

Global population growth peaked in the 1960s at over 2% per year. Since then, rates have more than halved, falling to less than 1%. 

The UN expects rates to continue to fall until the end of the century. In fact, towards the end of the century, it projects negative growth, meaning the global population will shrink instead of grow.

Global population growth, in absolute terms – which is the number of births minus the number of deaths – has also peaked. You can see this in our interactive chart:

What you should know about this data

• These projections are sensitive to the assumptions made about future fertility rates worldwide. Find out more from the UN World Population Division.
  
• Other sources and scenarios in the UN’s projections suggest that the peak was reached slightly earlier or later. However, most indicate that the world is close to “peak child” and the number of children will not increase in the coming decades.
  
• The ‘ups and downs’ in this chart reflect generational effects and ‘baby booms’ when there are large cohorts of women of reproductive age, and high fertility rates. The timing of these transitions varies across the world.

What you should know about this data

• These projections are sensitive to the assumptions made about future fertility and mortality rates worldwide. Find out more from the UN World Population Division.
  
• Other sources and scenarios in the UN’s projections can produce a slightly earlier or later peak. Most demographers, however, expect that by the end of the century, the global population will have peaked or slowed so much that population growth will be small.