This article includes a table of annual population growth rate for countries and subnational areas.
This article includes a table of annual population growth rate for countries and subnational areas.
In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years from there to reach 8 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 nearly 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 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. 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.
Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 70 million annually, or 0.85% per year. As of 2024, The United Nations projects that global population will peak in the mid-2080s at around 10.3 billion. The UN's estimates have decreased strongly in recent years due to sharp declines in global birth rates. Others have challenged many recent population projections as having underestimated population growth.
The world human population has been growing since the end of the Black Death, around the year 1350. A mix of technological advancement that improved agricultural productivity and sanitation and medical advancement that reduced mortality increased population growth. In some geographies, this has slowed through the process called the demographic transition, where many nations with high standards of living have seen a significant slowing of population growth. This is in direct contrast with less developed contexts, where population growth is still happening. Globally, the rate of population growth has declined from a peak of 2.2% per year in 1963.
This article includes lists of countries and dependent territories sorted by their real gross domestic product growth rate; the rate of growth of the total value of all final goods and services produced within a state in a given year compared with the previous year. The figures are from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook Database, unless otherwise specified.
This list is not to be confused with the list of countries by real GDP per capita growth, which is the percentage change of GDP per person taking into account the changing population of the country. List of countries by GNI per capita growth measures changes in gross national income per capita.
This is a list of countries by real GDP per capita growth rate, which takes into account inflation and population growth rate. Real GDP per capita growth is not to be confused with gross national income per capita growth or the real GDP growth.