Today, human influence has transformed almost every part of the globe. But looking at the span of human history, this wasn’t the case until quite recently.
That’s one of the many lessons from a series of fascinating maps and charts from WorldPopulationHistory.org, which shows the explosive growth of the world’s human population from 1 CE (1 AD) to the present and into the future.
Each of the dots in the map below indicates 1 million people, with some of the dots placed in the middle of a more spread-out population. The video demonstrates how the world population grew from only 170 million people in 1 CE to nearly 7.4 billion currently. And according to recent estimates from the World Bank, we will add another 4 billion people by 2100.
The map starts shortly after the one minute mark in the video below. Make sure to watch to the end to see the most incredible part — the exponential growth of the world’s population since the Industrial Revolution.
One of the first things that jumps out at you from this video is that China and India have always been kind of a big deal. The huge populations of South and East Asia, especially around the Yellow and Ganges rivers, stretches back to ancient times. You can also see early civilizations along the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile River, and in Japan, Indonesia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
By contrast, the Americas are much more sparsely populated. You can see the Aztec and the Inca populations flourish around 1400, as well as some other ancient populations, like the Mayans and the Moche. But the population of the Americas doesn’t really start to boom until after the Industrial Revolution.
If you watch the video closely, you can see some populations wane as well — including Europe’s loss of millions of people from the Black Death, and the fall of the Incan Empire with European colonization.
The WorldPopulationHistory.org site includes an interactive version of this map that tells you what civilizations all these dots represent. It also includes a cool site where you can enter your birthday to see how many people were alive on Earth when you were born. For example, if your birth is Jan. 1, 1980, the site shows you that there were 4,449,226,229 other people alive when you were born.
GregT on Fri, 5th Feb 2016 7:44 pm
“Of such paradigms, none is so powerful, nor so blatantly false, as the fantasy that all humanoids are equal.”
So true. It has been shown that Asians are in general much more intelligent than us whiteys.
Maybe we should just off ourselves, so that the more intelligent race can continue on.
Apneaman on Fri, 5th Feb 2016 8:03 pm
Hey douche, still all bitter and angry because the white privilege was never extended to you. Serve many blacks and latinos on the 7/11 night shift? Even with white privilege you still need some ambition and a skill set to benefit or be born into it. What? they didn’t tell you that? Maybe you just don’t possess the right genes. Intelligence is heredity on the individual level – not by race. The chinese example is pure culture. How does it feel to know a billion gooks can run math & science circles around you douchy? Loser.
Tim Wise analyzing white privilege
“Tim Wise detailing White Privilege and how it was created and the parallels between oppression blacks here in America and Iraqis in Iraq due to white privilege”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHZT3obyYoo
onlooker on Fri, 5th Feb 2016 8:09 pm
Holy cow, when I was born only some 3 billion something persons around, now over 7 billion. Wow.
antaris on Fri, 5th Feb 2016 9:04 pm
Oil giveth and no oil will taketh away.