“The accuracy of the underlying, empirical information varies tremendously around the world,” Gerland says. Significant blind spots remain, however, particularly for countries that are experiencing humanitarian crises and conflicts, such as Somalia, Yemen and Syria. And there has been a steady improvement in recent decades in the ability and capacity of many countries to collect statistics. The organization recently changed how it analyses data, switching from five-yearly to annual intervals. “We may have passed it, or it may be a little later, but it’s around this time that humanity is reaching 8 billion.”Īlthough approximate, this could be the most reliable estimate that the UN has produced so far. “It is a crude approximation that is more of a symbolic finding,” says Patrick Gerland, who leads demographic work at the UN Population Division in New York City. Although the human population has grown rapidly, that growth is slowing-and, within a few decades, Earth’s population will begin to shrink. The latest UN population update, released in July this year, also revises its long-term projection down from 11 billion people to 10.4 billion by 2100.ĭemographers will never be sure if 15 November really was the Day of Eight Billion, as the UN has named it, but they do agree on one thing. According to the models of the United Nations (UN), the world’s population will reach 8 billion today-a mere 12 years since it passed 7 billion, and less than a century after the planet supported just 2 billion people.
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