This article is an updated version of one of the most popular features on PRB’s website, estimating the number of people who have ever been born. We first made this estimate in 1995, with updates in 2002 and 2011.
“Modern” Homo sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) first walked the Earth about 50,000 years ago. Since then, more than 108 billion members of our species have ever been born, according to estimates by Population Reference Bureau (PRB). Given the current global population of about 7.5 billion (based on our most recent estimate as of mid-2017), that means those of us currently alive represent about 7 percent of the total number of humans who have ever lived.
PRB estimates that by 2050 about 113 billion people will have ever lived on Earth.
To be sure, calculating the number of people who have ever lived is part science and part art. No demographic data exist for 99 percent of the span of human existence. Still, with some assumptions about prehistoric populations, we can get a rough idea of this historic number (see Table 1).
Table 1. How Many People Have Ever Lived?
| Year | Population | Births per 1,000 | Births Between Benchmarks | Number Ever Born | Percent of Those Ever Born |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 B.C.E. | 2 | – | – | – | – |
| 8000 B.C.E. | 5,000,000 | 80 | 1,137,789,769 | 1,137,789,769 | 0.4 |
| 1 C.E. | 300,000,000 | 80 | 46,025,332,354 | 47,163,122,125 | 0.6 |
| 1200 | 450,000,000 | 60 | 26,591,343,000 | 73,754,465,125 | 0.6 |
| 1650 | 500,000,000 | 60 | 12,782,002,453 | 86,536,467,578 | 0.6 |
| 1750 | 795,000,000 | 50 | 3,171,931,513 | 89,708,399,091 | 0.9 |
| 1850 | 1,265,000,000 | 40 | 4,046,240,009 | 93,754,639,100 | 1.3 |
| 1900 | 1,656,000,000 | 40 | 2,900,237,856 | 96,654,876,956 | 1.7 |
| 1950 | 2,516,000,000 | 31-38 | 3,390,198,215 | 100,045,075,171 | 2.5 |
| 1995 | 5,760,000,000 | 31 | 5,427,305,000 | 105,472,380,171 | 5.5 |
| 2011 | 6,987,000,000 | 23 | 2,130,327,622 | 107,602,707,793 | 6.5 |
| 2017 | 7,536,000,000 | 19 | 867,982,322 | 108,470,690,115 | 6.9 |
| 2030 | 8,563,000,000 | 16 | 1,806,595,106 | 110,277,285,221 | 7.8 |
| 2050 | 9,846,000,000 | 15 | 2,833,529,982 | 113,110,815,203 | 8.7 |
Note: The estimates for those ever born apply only to live births; still births are not counted.
Source: Toshiko Kaneda and Genevieve Dupuis, 2017 World Population Data Sheet (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2017); United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2017).
What Can We Estimate About Population in Prehistory and History?
Any estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived depends essentially on two factors: the length of time humans are thought to have been on Earth and the average size of the human population at different periods.
Fixing a time when the human race actually came into existence is not straightforward. Hominids walked the Earth as early as several million years ago, and various ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared at least as early as 700,000 B.C. According to the United Nations Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, modern Homo sapiens may have appeared about 50,000 B.C.
At the dawn of agriculture, about 8,000 B.C., the world population was somewhere on the order of 5 million. (Very rough figures are given in the table, representing averages of an estimate of ranges given by the United Nations and other sources.) The slow population growth over the 8,000-year period—from an estimated 5 million to 300 million in 1 A.D.—results in a very low growth rate of only 0.0512 percent per year. It is difficult to come up with an average world population size over this period. In all likelihood, human populations in different regions grew or declined in response to famines, the vagaries of animal herds, hostilities, and changing weather and climatic conditions.
In any case, life was short. Life expectancy at birth probably averaged only about 10 years for most of human history. Estimates of average life expectancy in Iron Age France (from 800 B.C. to about 100 A.D.) have been put at only 10 or 12 years. Under these conditions, the birth rate would have to be about 80 live births per 1,000 people just for the species to survive. To put that in perspective, a high birth rate today would be about 45 to 50 live births per 1,000 population, and it is observed in only a few African and several Middle Eastern countries with young populations.
Our birth rate assumption will greatly affect the estimate of the number of people who have ever lived. Infant mortality in the modern human race’s earliest days is thought to have been very high—perhaps 500 infant deaths per 1,000 births, or even higher. Children were probably an economic liability among hunter-gatherer societies, a fact likely to have led to the practice of infanticide. Under these circumstances, a disproportionately large number of births would be required to maintain population growth, and that would raise our estimated number of the “ever born.”
By 1 A.D., the world may have held about 300 million people. One estimate of the population of the Roman Empire, spanning Spain to Asia Minor, in 14 A.D., is 45 million. Other historians, however, set the figure twice as high, suggesting how imprecise population estimates of early historical periods can be.
By 1650, the world’s population rose to about 500 million, not a large increase over the 1 A.D. estimate. The average annual rate of growth was actually lower in this period than the rate suggested for the preceding period from 8,000 B.C. to 1 A.D. One reason for the abnormally slow growth was the Black Death. This dreaded plague was not limited to 14th-century Europe, but may have begun in western Asia about 542 A.D., and spread from there. Experts believe that half the Byzantine Empire was destroyed by plague in the 6th century, a total of 100 million deaths. Such large fluctuations in population size over long periods greatly compound the difficulty of estimating the number of people who have ever lived.
By 1800, however, the world population passed the 1 billion mark, and it has since continued to grow to its current 7.5 billion. This growth is driven in large part by advances in medicine and nutrition that lowered death rates, allowing more people to live into their reproductive years.
How Do We Get From 2 Billion to 108 Billion?
Guesstimating the number of people ever born, then, requires selecting population sizes for different points from antiquity to the present and applying assumed birth rates to each period. We start at the very, very beginning—with just two people (a minimalist approach!).
One complicating factor is the pattern of population growth. Did it rise to some level and then fluctuate wildly in response to famines and changes in climate? Or did it grow at a constant rate from one point to another? We cannot know the answers to these questions, although paleontologists have produced a variety of theories. For the purposes of this exercise, it was assumed that a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times. Birth rates were set at 80 per 1,000 per year through 1 A.D. and at 60 per 1,000 from 2 A.D. to 1750. Rates then declined to the low 30s by the modern period.
This semi-scientific approach yields an estimate of about 108.4 billion births since the dawn of the modern human race. Clearly, the period 8,000 B.C. to 1 A.D. is key to the magnitude of our number, but, unfortunately, little is known about the population size in that era. If we were to make any guess at all, it might be that our method underestimates the number of births to some degree. The assumption of constant population growth in the earlier period may underestimate the average population size at the time. And, of course, pushing the date of modern humanity’s arrival on the planet before 50,000 B.C. would also raise the number, although perhaps not by terribly much.
Table 2. Snapshot of Population History
| Number of people ever born | 108,470,690,115 |
| World population in mid-2017 | 7,536,000,000 |
| Percent of those ever born who are living in 2017 | 6.9 |
So, our estimate here is that about 7 percent of all people ever born are alive today (see Table 2). That’s actually a fairly large percentage when you think about it.
Toshiko Kaneda, a senior research associate at PRB, provided the current estimates of how many people have lived on Earth. We wish to thank Carl Haub, former senior demographer at PRB, for producing the original version of this article.
Richard Guenette on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 12:59 pm
Overpopulation is a global problem. Part of the problem is the oppression of women. The best solution to overpopulation is educating and empowering women and girls, providing condoms for both men and women (to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases). Overpopulation will lead to loss of arable land and desertification caused by deforestation, changes in climate (which is already happening), malnutrition, wars over scarce resources (such as freshwater, food), air, water and land pollution, loss of personal freedom, mass species extinctions of flora and fauna.
Richard Guenette on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 2:28 pm
Our Earth cannot hold more than 7.6 billion humans. Nature will stop overpopulation if we don’t wake up and stop pretending that nothing is happening to our planet.
rockman on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 3:39 pm
Anyone else having trouble getting the forums? For 2 days I keep getting:
General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]
Table ‘./j5f1d5a9_po/phpbb_sessions’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired [145]
An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.
Ghung on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 3:58 pm
Yeah, Rock, looks like the other side (forums) is down hard…..
…. or maybe they don’t love us anymore 🙁
Mister French on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 4:05 pm
Thank God, yes….one blessing is you are no longer posting there….cheerleader
JuanP on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:20 pm
Same here, Rock
JuanP on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:24 pm
The last comment on the forum side was two and a half days ago. I haven’t been able to access the forums since. I get an error message.
I AM THE MOB on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:29 pm
‘Expensive energy is back’ — and it’s threatening the global economy, IEA
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/12/iea-report-expensive-energy-is-back-and-its-threatening-the-economy.html
PeakReetard on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:32 pm
You want to stop overpopulation stop vaccination and ban antibiotics. Ban welfare. Ban technology. Stop saving preemies. Stop fertility treatments. Stop feeding africans. ect,ect
There is Only One Person Who Lived on this planet. His Name Is Jesus.
JuanP on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:42 pm
Richard “Our Earth cannot hold more than 7.6 billion humans.”
It can and it will. The only question is for how long we will get away with, and at what ultimate cost to our species and the environment.
Davy on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 5:50 pm
“‘Expensive energy is back’ — and it’s threatening the global economy, IEA”
Slob, you posted that already today or did your forget?
I AM THE MOB on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 6:59 pm
Europe debt as a % of GDP by country
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20160220_pdebt.png
Europe is headed for bankruptcy..
makati1 on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:00 pm
JuanP, I see the human population maxing out at about 8.5 billion. Maybe less. I think that the coming reset will stall the growth and set it in decline for the rest of our short history. If the UN Agenda 2030 gets going soon, it may reach 9 billion. We shall see.
I AM THE MOB on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:02 pm
Peak
Jesus was a paranoid schizophrenic..They just didn’t know what that was back then..And his followers now of days exhibt many of the same symptoms..Just look at Davy squealing about a deep state that doesn’t exist in reality..
makati1 on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:03 pm
BTW: I occasionally cannot access the PO site and get various messages. Then it returns a few hours later.
Richard Guenette on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:06 pm
Peak, you are out of touch with reality.
I AM THE MOB on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:10 pm
The exact week, month, or year when maximal production is reached has only historical interest. The point is that since the end of 2015 the 12-month averaged C+C production has barely increased (EIA data) despite the increase in demand.
Dec 2015 80,564 100.0%
Dec 2016 80,579 100.0%
Dec 2017 80,936 100.5%
Apr 2018 81,363 101.0%
We will have to see how it evolves over to the next December, but so far it is annualized to a 0.4% increase. To me we are in a bumpy plateau since late 2015 and all those meager gains and more will be lost in the next crisis.
The problem will be evident to many when after the crisis we are not able to increase production above those values.Peak Oil is a situation, not a date, and we are in that situation since late 2015. The oil that the world demands cannot be produced so prices are going up, and up..
I AM THE MOB on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:40 pm
All power to the soviets! – Gritty
https://imgur.com/a/TNa3zDG
makati1 on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 7:53 pm
GUESStimating numbers. And they actually get paid for this bullshit! LOL
Administrator on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 9:09 pm
I have received complaints from posters unable to post comments. We are in the process of implementing an upgrade that will limit posts from serial offenders (i.e. “Davy”). The beta version is experiencing errors. Please have patience while we work out the kinks.
Thank you for your patient understanding.
makati1 on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 9:46 pm
Admin, well worth the inconvenience if it will civilize the site. ^_^
Ghung on Fri, 12th Oct 2018 10:20 pm
Admin: ” We are in the process of implementing an upgrade that will limit posts from serial offenders (i.e. “Davy”). The beta version is experiencing errors”
Is that what’s broken on the forums side?
Cloggie on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 1:38 am
“Europe debt as a % of GDP by country
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20160220_pdebt.png
Europe is headed for bankruptcy..”
After you…
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/the-real-state-of-western-finances/
In fact Italy is financially the least problematic country of the entire West if you take into consideration the entire situation, not just public debt. Short version: most Italians live in largely paid-off real estate. Italians prefer to pay off the mortgage rather than taxes, call them libertarians, crooks or both.
Italy’s public financial problems can be solved at one stroke of a pen by forcing a 10k mortgage on every household.
Median wealth per capita is the best indicator for the position of the middle class:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Italy…..124k
France..120k
UK…….102k
US……..56k
Most of that wealth is paid-off real estate.
Italy… financial problems…. hahaha.
Davy on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 4:49 am
“We are in the process of implementing an upgrade that will limit posts from serial offenders (i.e. “Davy”).”
more socks playing their games. Funny really they can’t face me with real comments that require intellectual activity so they resort to their games of stealing handles and socks.
Davy on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 5:16 am
“In fact Italy is financially the least problematic country of the entire West if you take into consideration the entire situation, not just public debt. Short version: most Italians live in largely paid-off real estate. Italians prefer to pay off the mortgage rather than taxes, call them libertarians, crooks or both.”
LOL, keep telling yourself that neder to make yourself feel better while your loving Euro flirts with disaster. You Euros better get a handle in this Italian situation or it will be the end of your grand experiment. I know you have problems understanding economics because you politicize it and turn it into a propaganda exercise. This Italian problem has been explained away for years but no longer. This is one of 4 major existential economic risks currently to the global economy and Europe. It will be one of the hardest to solve. Slow growth and debt in an imperfect economic union of different nationalities is a bad combination. Eventually it could lead to a break up or worse. Germans are not going to subsidize the south much longer. The south is tired of the north exploiting them. Bad blood is building
Sum on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:04 am
My Dear American Hero Davy,
Hello my friend. I continue to admire your noble and intelligent commentary. To those that are critical of the one good and patriotic American, Davy, shut-up.
Davy, you must not allow the leftist liberals and neo-nazis that dominate this site to run amok. They must be and they are moderated by you. Give them hell.
Davy on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:06 am
there you go neder, pull out your sock puppet. I imagine you created the Administrator sock too. What a failure! LOL
Cloggie on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:12 am
There we go again: davy posts as sum and already two minutes later he posts his reply. And next accuses me of writing a post as sum, calling I am supposed to call the compulsory liar davy “My Dear American Hero Davy”.
You can’t make this stuff up.
You’re truly a sad f*ck, empire dave.
Davy on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:27 am
Translation: I am losing the argument so as an extremist engage in propaganda activity I resort to dirty games.
“You can’t make this stuff up.”
Mission accomplished, another extremist bites the dust from honesty to deceit. You can make this shit up and you do when you have been wounded. More failure out of a regular that has turned into a clown.
Davy on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:51 am
Neder, does your “sum” have any opinion on this? LOL.
“Italy Declares War On Merkel And The EU”
https://tinyurl.com/y8mkmtg6
“Salvini and Di Maio, however, have other plans. And since I began covering this story last year on my blog, I’ve said that it was imperative that Salvini force the issue of the Troika’s demands – the EU, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – back down their throats on debt restructuring/forgiveness. What I meant then, and I was focused on Salvini’s emergence as the leader of this fight, was that Salvini and Italy, because they are more than technically insolvent, have all the leverage in the negotiations. The size of their outstanding debt and the liabilities existent on the balance sheets of banks across Europe, most notably the nearly $1 trillion in TARGET 2 liabilities, are something Juncker, Draghi, Merkel and Christine LaGarde at the IMF simply cannot ignore.”
“The other prong of the assault is to remake the EU from within, which Salvini has openly stated is one of his goals. It started more than a month ago when he met with Hungarian President Viktor Orban who agreed on a strategy of creating a ‘League of Leagues’ to unite the opposition to the current technocratic rule on the European Commission. They were clear then that the goal was to wrest control of the European Commission Presidency from the coalition backing current President Jean-Claude Juncker.”
“The euro is weakening by the day while Italian bond yields are spiking. Traders do not know what to do as each statement by an official associated with this fight moves Italian debt markets by 20 basis points. And, I shouldn’t have to say this too many times but 20 basis point moves in sovereign debt markets is the definition of ‘not normal.”
“This is the ECB’s biggest weapon. It will try to scare everyone by allowing Italy’s fiscal position to erode quickly making it impossible for them to issue debt at sustainable yields. But, it does so at the expense of the value of the bonds it and other European banks already hold. Because they are dropping in value, undercutting the solvency of those banks. If the Italian leadership holds the line and refuse to back down, then they call the ECB’s bluff on allowing rates to rise. The ECB has to come back in, begin buying to support the price, and the regroup for the next battle. That’s what we’ve been seeing for a few months now in the Italian bond market. That’s where this war is being waged as well as the headlines. And Salvini and Di Maio understand it. Because if they didn’t they would have already folded. Instead they have doubled down on their opposition to Brussels and Berlin and added new vectors to their attacks. This will not end well.”
George Straight on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 10:17 am
WAY TOO MANY….Homoconsumptians have trashed the planet and are worse than a invasion of cockroaches.
rockman on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 3:30 pm
Thanks Ghung et al.
Thank goodness. Mister French finally thinks he has a comment worth posting.
Mister French on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 3:41 pm
Do I ROCKNUT? Oh, You know it all…
Right…now you feel better…Some people.
Peter Saul on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:24 pm
As World’s population expands, countries also take steps to adjust the usage accordingly.
We all know that China enforced 1 child policy to control population.
1 more step they used is to encourage people to cremate instead of bury so that precious land is saved. Besides the wood wasted for coffin is also saved.
Seems the rate of cremation has increased from 25% in 1985 to 53% last year.
Cremation rate in USA:50%; Canada:70%; Japan:99.97%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cremation_rate.
Peter Saul on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:29 pm
For the people in developing countries, the main fun is sex.
If we want to reduce the population, perhaps we should provide them with at least a basic cellphone, an electric connection to charge it. This gives them some communication, knowledge, entertainment and relieves the women from constant pregnancy.
BTW, the world’s current population is 7.6 billion and is racing towards 8 billion.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
2 countries are in 1 billion club.
13 countries are in 100 million club.
87 countries are in 10 million club.
makati1 on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 6:43 pm
Peter, have you ever been to a ‘developing’ country? If you had been, you would know that they have cell phones. One phone for each person here in the Philippines. No problem. However, they are just phones, not internet connected. ‘Smart’ phones are just another addiction, like drugs, not a plus and will never be cheap enough for the masses.
https://www.infoplease.com/science-health/cellphone-use/cell-phone-usage-worldwide-country (2012)
Perhaps you do not know how pregnancy happens? Takes about 5 minutes if you are a teen. Biological urge difficult to ignore when you are young. If more religions would preach birth control instead of large families (Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, etc.) the population would decline. Not going to happen.
Theedrich on Sat, 13th Oct 2018 11:57 pm
World pop is nearing one billion, mostly low IQs. In the coming decades, technology will render most of them superfluous: neither “repressed” nor “enslaved” types, just irrelevant. It will no longer make sense to blame that irrelevance on White males, despite with the media BigJews proclaim. Not that the latter will cease in their lies, just that few except the taxpayer-dependent academic elites will believe them. After all, the Chinks and Gooks will be producing most of the robots which will replace much of the grunt work. And, thanks to Sino-Mexican collaboration, the American White male population will have overdosed on fentanyl to the point of near disappearance.
And given that is the sterilization by plastics of said White (and other) males (see Daniel Noah Halpern’s Sperm Count Zero), the days of the human race as a whole are apparently numbered.
But of course none of this matters to the bacteria in the Petri dish. Only blaming Whitey for their own stupidity counts.
So the only real question remains: will we go out with a nuclear bang, or wither away as have so many other species that exceeded their ecological limits?
makati1 on Sun, 14th Oct 2018 12:57 am
Theedrich, I give nukes vs starvation a 50:50 odds. But then, many here believe that I am a war freak, and not describing reality. So be it.
“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring realty.” – Ayn Rand
makati1 on Sun, 14th Oct 2018 1:45 am
For the anti-preppers on PO:
“Preparedness Critics Are History’s Cannon Fodder”
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2638-preparedness-critics-are-historys-cannon-fodder
“During the Great Depression, the vast majority of American citizens were rural, farm-oriented people with survival skills far beyond the modern American. “Prepping” in those days was ingrained in our society, rather than marginalized and labeled “fringe.” Today, the numbers are reversed, with a dwindling number of farm-experienced Americans and a vast wasteland of urban and suburban citizens — many with few, if any, legitimate skill sets. During the Great Depression, millions of people died of starvation and general poverty, despite the incredible number of people with rural survival knowledge. What do you think would happen to our effeminate; metrosexual; iPhone-addicted; lisping; limp-wristed; self-obsessed; Twitter-, texting-, video game-addled; La-Z-Boy-riding; overgrown-child culture in the event that another economic crisis even remotely similar were to occur? Yes, most of them would die, probably in a horrible fashion.
Think about it for a moment. An incredible subsection of Americans do not know how to feed themselves; they do not know how to hunt; they do not know how to grow crops; they do not know how to repair any necessary items used for subsistence; they do not know how to build anything useful; they do not know how to shoot; they do not know how to defend themselves; they don’t even know how to cook a pot of rice properly. Their only skills involve parroting snarky remarks from their favorite lowest-common-denominator television and Web shows, building ample karma points on Reddit, and avoiding any stance contrary to what they perceive to be the majority opinion (which they also derive from mainstream media and websites).”
Slip slidin’…