In demographics, the term world population is often used to refer to the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated to have exceeded 7.9 billion as of November 2021. It took over two million years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion.
The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was near 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975 – peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the course of the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing rates of fertility and mortality.
The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050, and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century.
The total number of births globally is currently (2015–20) 140 million/year, is projected to peak during the period 2040-45 at 141 million/year and thereafter decline slowly to 126 million/year by 2100. The total number of deaths is currently 57 million/year and is projected to grow steadily to 121 million/year by 2100.
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