How Many Humans Have Ever Lived, and How Many Are Alive Right Now?

"How many peo­ple have ever walked the earth? Good ques­tion, even if you've nev­er quite pon­dered it before. Accord­ing to the Pop­u­la­tion Ref­er­ence Bureau, a non-prof­it research orga­ni­za­tion, if you trav­el back to 8000 B.C.E., the world pop­u­la­tion stood at about 5 mil­lion. By 1 C.E., the num­ber climbs to 300 mil­lion, before grad­u­al­ly increas­ing to 500 mil­lion in 1650."

"Once we get beyond the plagues of the medieval peri­od, our pop­u­la­tion explodes, reaching the 1 bil­lion mark in 1800 and then 8 bil­lion in 2022. Tak­en togeth­er, an esti­mat­ed 117 bil­lion peo­ple have col­lec­tive­ly lived on our plan­et, and, of that total num­ber, 7% are alive right now. A strik­ing fig­ure. Using sim­i­lar data, video jour­nal­ist Cleo Abram visu­al­izes the his­tor­i­cal trend in a short, suc­cinct video above."

Population estimates place about 5 million people on Earth around 8000 B.C.E., rising to 300 million by 1 C.E. and roughly 500 million by 1650. Global population reached about 1 billion by 1800 and accelerated to 8 billion by 2022. Cumulatively, approximately 117 billion people have lived on the planet. Of that cumulative total, around 7% of all people who have ever lived are alive today. The long-term trend shows relatively slow growth for millennia followed by rapid expansion since the early modern period, which can be visualized in animated data-driven presentations.

Read at Open Culture