Very interesting. Looks like China stabilises itself (still a hell lot of people) and Japan will have almost as many people as the biggest country Russia? I don't envy them...
All countries kind of stabilize themselves and later drop in population when transitioning into an industrial country. Most of Europe had this around the beginning of the industrial revolution and is now in the slightly declining stage. China is almost there and a lot of central africa still has rapidly growing populations. There probably is a name to the process, but I forgot.
China was never really a problem. Same as India, they always had huge population as they are very fertile and culturally rich lands.
I am more worried about Pakistan, not at all a stable country with terrorism and nuclear weapons (!) and Nigeria which is in constant turmoil and on the verge of civil war.
An even more massive decrease is projected to take place in Russia: 144 million to 109 million with 35 years, that's about 1 million of decrease per year. Unbelievable, if you ask me.
They're still feeling the effects of WWII on the population. So many young men died, that every generation there is a dip in population as the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren aren't being born. And because they industrialized at the same time, they were already slowing their population growth.
Was wondering something similar - we have 89 mil now in Germany, and it is predicted to be less than 77 (the lowest entry on this scale)? That is very unexpected!
Much like the rest of Europe, Germany is dying out. Your only hope of rescue is the influx of immigrants, though it still may not be enough as their fertility rates drop after the first generation or two.
The difference with other countries is due to the scale, Germany has the largest population so the decline is larger in numbers even if percentage is the same to say Spain, Sweden or Croatia.
I wonder. There were already major exceptions to the one-child policy. Also, culturally similar countries tend to have low birth rates. Let's hope that China doesn't have a population explosion. The global projections are scary enough.
It looks like the UN agrees with you @Quizzer6794. Since the last update of this quiz, the population projection for China was increased by over 100 million people.
Not necessarily. Its successes will stabilise the population; as will some of its unfortunate consequences - like a huge shortage of women in that generation due to preference for sons.
Not a happy prospect. Many of these countries will be in dire straits by then. If nothing changes what will be the populations in 2100 and so on. Because it is in the future nobody will address the real issue and that is if the human species does not cut down on birth rates great tragedy is before us.
People in developed countries lowering their birth rates doesn’t affect the birth rates in the undeveloped or developing world. It’s stupid that they can’t think they can have kids because of climate change.
Or start their own space program... start fresh somewhere else.. (and yes they ll need food/vegetation on other wlrlds. But surely... if they can build a rocket they could find a solution for that..)
None of these countries currently have 100 million people in them. France's and the UK's population growth rates are very small and Germany's is flat or declining.
Germany has an average age of 47.1 and a fertility rate of 1.57. Currently, more people die in Germany than are born. If Germany's population is increasing, it is only via massive levels of immigration that are probably not politically tenable in the long term. But who knows? Maybe people will decide to start having kids again. Nevertheless, I have faith that the projections are based on good data.
The projections for most of these countries have been revised down in the last couple years. The projection for Ethiopia is now "only" 228 million now, down from 281 million.
A perfect example of why people shouldn't kvetch so much over these things. It's never linear, so you can't just project current rates of growth over decades. The current growth rate is slowing, and the most convincing estimates I've seen of global population show a leveling off at around 9.5-10B. Still a huge number so there's work to be done for us to cope well.
Don't worry, im sure western europe and north america will be more than willing to accept all the excess population from all of these countries, to do anything else would be -ist
I bet a lot of these declining populations (like Japan or most of Europe) will change course as more and more immigrants replace the current populations.
I wonder if climate change was accounted for. A lot of these countries are in the areas that are getting hotter and drier, and autocratic, and look at Syria for what can happen with climate change under a dictator.
Actually there have been interesting studies about the effects of climate change on Syria's civil war. In short extreme drought pushed people from the country into cities, which led to overcrowding and heightened tension, which then ultimately sparked the war. Climate change is of course not the only cause of the war, but it does seem to have influenced it.
Hmmm... I realize that population predictions often vary widely because they're difficult to predict. For the most part these seem right, but I did a bit of research and I've found a lot of sources, including Wikipedia, say that Bangladesh's population will be about 202 million, not 250 million, in 2050. It might be worth looking into this again and making that change.
It's easy to be a "chicken little" about population growth, but human progress is a pretty incredible thing to behold. Problems like disease, corruption, etc. will never be fully eradicated across such a diverse planet, but the quality of life for the vast majority have been improving steadily for decades. Especially so for those in the lowest quartile.
I agree 100%. The more I learn about the world the less I worry about overpopulation. I'd also thoroughly recommend reading The Infinite Resource. Technological adoption is growing faster than the population. This explains why the percentage of people who experience poverty is at all-time lows, and gets better every year.
The worldwide population growth rate is a little over 1% per year. Even without a vaccine, over time humans would probably develop resistance to COVID-19, and even at the current rate it's going it won't kill off 1% of us. It would have to wipe out 80 million people a year to do that. And that's ignoring the fact that it mostly kills off old people past reproductive age.
Am I the only one who is surprised about Iraq being on the list? (Or maybe it was just added recently). It's not a big country and a lot of it is just a desert, how are they going to fit in there? I kind of get Bangladesh and Nigeria because of all the fertile land, but Iraq doesn't have that
Hello from 2050! This quiz is very wrong; the most populated country right now is Bougainville! Please update this quiz or my pet alien will attack you. Thank You! See you in 2050!
GAS GAS GAS, India has first then China, but there are no European countries here (only Russia and Turkey) and the Philippines got rank 10th than Russia.
I am more worried about Pakistan, not at all a stable country with terrorism and nuclear weapons (!) and Nigeria which is in constant turmoil and on the verge of civil war.
That makes sense.
The difference with other countries is due to the scale, Germany has the largest population so the decline is larger in numbers even if percentage is the same to say Spain, Sweden or Croatia.
If you mean Erdogan, he might roll over the Balkans but he's not going further lol
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2019/0809/Points-of-Progress-271-million-lifted-out-of-poverty-in-India-and-more
This should be a trivial bit in the caveat.