World Population Statistics

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World Statistics - World’s Population by Continents

World = 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.)
Asia = 3,785,470,000
Africa = 841,628,000
Europe = 728,950,000
North America = 491,519,000
South America = 355,068,000
Oceania (incl. Australia) = 31,617,000
Antarctica = no permanent population

Overall, there are 268 nations, dependent areas, and other entities according to the World Factbook 2007.

Age Structure

0-14 years: 27.4% (male 931,551,498 / female 875,646,416)
15-64 years: 65.1% (male 2,174,605,518 / female 2,124,494,703)
65 years and over: 7.5% (male 217,451,123 / female 278,474,917) (2007 est.)

Religions

Christians 33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox 3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%, atheists 2.36% (2004 est.)

Languages

Mandarin Chinese 13.69%, Spanish 5.05%, English 4.84%, Hindi 2.82%, Portuguese 2.77%, Bengali 2.68%, Russian 2.27%, Japanese 1.99%, Standard German 1.49%, Wu Chinese 1.21% (2004 est.)
note: percents are for “first language” speakers only and therefore do not add to 100%

Literacy

total population: 82%
male: 87%
female: 77%
note: over two-thirds of the world’s 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab states, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.)

10 Largest Countries

There are approximately 225 inhabited countries and territories in the world. About half the world’s people live in the first six largest countries listed below.

China = 1,286,975,468
India = 1,049,700,118
United States = 290,342,554
Indonesia = 234,893,453
Brazil = 182,032,604
Pakistan = 150,694,740
Russia = 144,526,278
Bangladesh = 138,448,210
Nigeria = 133,881,703
Japan = 127,214,499

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base

World Birth/Death Rates

Birth Rate:
20.4 births/1,000 population
128.6 million births per year
352,239 births per day
14,677 births each hour
245 births each minute
4.1 births each second of every day

Death Rate:
9 deaths/1,000 population
56.7 million souls die each year
155,399 souls die each day
6475 souls die each hour
108 souls die each minute
almost 2 (1.8) souls die each second