Mapping global population and the future of the world

The world's population has more than doubled since the 1970s. But a booming population is only part of the story—in some places populations are in decline.

Daily Watch: mind-stretching short films throughout the working week.

[admiralspyro]

India and China always had a lot of people, even 500 years ago. So they grow on a expected rate. The scary thing is nigeria and other african countries, because they have a expotentially growing population and no controlling measurements, no infrastructure and often no reliable goverment.

[arthurcardon]

RIP Lions, Elephants, Rhinos, Hippos and Giraffes u will be missed

[nordia]

Overpopulation of Africa will NOT boost the global economy, but only be a burden to it as well as to the environment.

[Agtsmirnoff]

Tens of million more migrants for Europe

[clementyang]

starving while having 5 kids, sounds just right.

[daniels]

No hate but too many people might be the end of humanity! It may reach that point where necessities of life may become too expensive for many to afford

[alixkilby]

Wow... Nigeria had 38 million in 1950 and 197 million today! Thats crazy and bad, they are projected to be at 752 million by 2100!

[bdhdigbdofnfivushdvtu]

I will begin to learn Wakanda language right now

[Grmario]

We need less people, more technology, more supplies, more ecology, more family control and more education. This is all going the wrong way.

[rivenadeshizzle]

Where's Thanos when you need him? :(

[es]

Africa's population boom is different to any population boom we've seen in the past. While most countries, when they reach industrialization quadruple or quintuple their population (Germany 20M->80M, UK 15M->60M, China 500M->1500M) Africa has already sextupled its population (200M in 1950 -> 1300M in 2018) which is projected to further rise to more than 4000M by the end of the century. This is a twentyfold increase and even by 2100, it is still projected to rise for a couple decades. At the same time, real economic development is only now starting to emerge in a very limited number of places. This is dangerous to Africa and the entire world. Africa isn't able to sustain itself with such a huge population, especially when climate change continues to decrease the area of arable land and makes droughts much more common. Food and especially water shortages will become a problem eventually, not to mention the massive loss of jobs, which will be the result of automation. This will cause migration and flight on a scale the world has never seen before, threatening Asia and especially Europe.

[judeokoye]

Nigeria's population boom is mainly due to the Muslim majority North, the unfortunate part is that this is the poorest and most illiterate part of the country.

[AutismPersonified]

The number one way to lower birth rates is to improve the standard of living.

[nileshbhakre]

Population overloading is threat to our environment.

[yashnaik]

Stop scaring people. The birth rates are dropping and food production is setting new records. Fewer people starve every year. Stop with the doom and gloom. If we can avoid violence the world is getting better every year.

[AmitKumar-vxhp]

A large population is a burden, not an opportunity, especially with automation. Look at the quality of human capital that Africa or Asia has..

[heritagecosmos]

We are living in a techological era, half of the jobs will be taking by machines, so no need that much people anymore.)

[Mimi-qxyq]

When europe was underdevelopped centuries ago people used to have 7 children too (with high mortality tho). The thing is that as more civilized is a country the less grows the population.

[zyzmys]

Africa is developing fast the fastest growing economies are in Africa that will translate to low birth rates also Africa has more than enough resources to sustain itself, Africa is much bigger than USA, India, China, Argentina, Western Europe combined with a population smaller than India

[thelink]

Actually Africa is less densely populated than India China and a lot more. Africa has the land to grow its food and the resources to sustain population growth. It is you and your countries that need Africa not the other way around.