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How has world population growth changed over time?

The world population has increased rapidly in recent centuries. But this is slowing.

June 1, 2023
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The world population has changed dramatically over the last few centuries. Let’s examine long-run population data to understand this change and how quickly the world’s population is growing today.

The chart shows the increasing number of people living on our planet over the last 12,000 years. This is a mind-boggling change: the world population today is around 2,000 times the size of what it was 12,000 years ago, when it was around 4 million, less than half of the current population of London.

The size of the world population over the long-run. A line chart of world population from 10,000 BCE to present with a short projected extension into the 21st century. It shows a very slow, nearly flat increase for millennia, a small bump around 2,000 years ago, and a rapid exponential rise after about 1800 leading to roughly 8 billion in 2022. Key labeled milestones: about 4 million in 10,000 BCE; 595 million in 1700; 983 million in 1800; 1.6 billion in 1900; 2 billion in 1927; 3 billion in 1960; 4 billion in 1975; 5 billion in 1987; 6 billion in 1998; 7 billion in 2010; 8 billion in 2022. The chart includes a UN Population Division projection that reaches 9 billion in 2037, 10 billion in 2061, and a peak of about 10.3 billion in 2084 before declining. Annotations note that average growth from 10,000 BCE to 1700 was about 0.04 percent per year and that the mid-14th century Black Death killed between a quarter and a half of the population of Europe. A footer annotation contrasts global life expectancy before 1800 (less than 28 years) with life expectancy in 2023 (73 years). Data sources shown in the footer: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022, 2023); UN WPP (2024). The graphic is credited to OurWorldinData.org with the statement "Research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems" and is licensed under CC-BY by authors Max Roser and Veronika Samborska.

What is striking about this chart is, of course, that almost all of this growth happened just very recently. Historical demographers estimate that around 1800, the world population was just under 1 billion people. This implies that, on average, the population grew very slowly from 10,000 BCE to 1700 (by 0.04% annually). After 1800, this changed fundamentally: the world population was around 1 billion in 1800 and is now around 8 billion — 8 times larger.

Around 108 billion people have ever lived on our planet. This means that today’s population makes up 6.5% of the total number of people ever born.1

For a long period from the appearance of modern Homo sapiens up to the starting point of this chart in 10,000 BCE, it is estimated that the total world population was often well under one million.2 In that period, our species was often seriously threatened by extinction.3

You can explore the interactive visualization of this change.

How has the world population growth rate changed?

We looked at the absolute change in the global population over time. But what about the rate of population growth?

The global population growth rate peaked long ago. The next chart shows that global population growth peaked in 1963 at an annual growth rate of 2.3%; however, since then, world population growth has halved.4

World population growth, 1700 to 2100. Area chart of world population over time with an overlaid line chart showing the annual growth rate. X axis runs from 1700 to 2100. Key population milestones annotated: about 595 million in 1700; 1 billion in 1805; 2 billion in 1927; 5 billion in 1987; 8 billion in 2022; projected 9 billion in 2037 and 10 billion in 2061. The population curve rises slowly through the 18th and 19th centuries, accelerates sharply in the mid-20th century, then flattens under the projection labeled "Projection (UN medium-fertility variant)." The annual growth rate line peaks at 2.2 percent in 1964, falls to 0.9 percent in 2023, and is projected to decline to negative 0.1 percent by 2100. Data source text in the footer reads: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024). Footer also shows OurWorldInData.org with the tagline "Research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems" and a license note: Licensed under CC-BY by the author Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Veronika Samborska.

For the last half-century, the population growth rate has been declining. The UN projects that this decline will continue in the coming decades.

A common question we’re asked is whether the global population is growing exponentially. The answer is no.

For population growth to be exponential, the growth rate would have to be the same over time — for example, 2% growth every year. In absolute terms, this would result in an exponential increase in the number of people. That’s because we’d be multiplying an ever-larger number of people by the same 2%. 2% of this year’s population would be larger than 2% last year, and so on; this means the population would grow exponentially.

However, as this chart shows, the growth rate has been falling since the 1960s. This means the world population is not growing exponentially.

Other ways to visualize population growth

How long did it take for the world population to double?

There are a few other ways to contextualize this period of population growth.

In the next chart, we show the time it took the world population to double. On the vertical axis, we have the number of years needed to double; on the horizontal axis, we have the year that a population level was reached. This is based on the 2024 revision of world population estimates from the UN Population Division.

Time it took for the world population to double. Line chart showing how many years it took the global population to double from around 1500 through a projected 2100. The trend falls steeply from very long doubling times in early centuries to much shorter intervals in the 20th century, then rises slightly with a shaded area on the right indicating a UN projection. Annotated points: it took 1,024 years to double from 250 million in year 471 to 500 million in 1495; 310 years to double from 0.5 billion to 1 billion in 1805; 121 years to double from 1 to 2 billion in 1926; 72 years to double from 1.5 to 3 billion in 1960; 36 years to double from 2.5 to 5 billion in 1986; 48 years to double from 4 to 8 billion in 2022; projection of 74 years to double from 5 to 10 billion in 2060 under the UN medium-fertility variant. Data source: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022, 2023); UN WPP (2024). Licensed under CC-BY by the authors Max Roser and Veronika Samborska. OurWorldInData.org — Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.

In the past, the world population grew slowly: it took over ten centuries for the population to double from 250 million (in the early 5th century) to 500 million in the middle of the 15th century. As the growth rate slowly climbed, the population doubling time fell but remained in the order of centuries.

Things sped up considerably in the middle of the 20th century. The fastest doubling of the world population happened between 1950 and 1986: from 2.5 to 5 billion people in just 36 years — the population doubled within a little more than one generation. This period was marked by a peak population growth of 2.3% in 1963.

Since then, population growth has slowed, and the doubling time alongside it. In this visualization, we have used the UN projections to show how the doubling time is projected to change until the end of this century. By the 2060s, it will once again have taken approximately 74 years for the population to double to a predicted 10 billion.

How long did it take for the world population to increase by one billion?

This last visualization provides an additional perspective on population growth: the number of years it took to add one billion to the global population. This is based on the 2024 revision of world population estimates from the UN Population Division.

This visualization shows again how the population growth rate has changed dramatically over time.

It wasn’t until 1805 that the world reached a population of 1 billion; it then took another 121 years to reach two billion. By the third billion, this period had reduced to 34 years, reduced further to 14 years to reach four. The fastest growth period occurred from 1974 to 2022, taking only 12 years to increase by one billion for the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th time.

The world has now surpassed this peak rate of growth, and the period between each billion is expected to continue rising. It’s estimated to take approximately 15 years to reach nine billion in 2037 and 23 years to reach 10 billion in 2060.

The latest medium projection from the UN finds that the world will not reach 11 billion people this century: it projects the population to peak at 10.3 billion in the 2080s before falling again.

Time for the world population to increase by one billion Vertical bar chart showing how many years it took for the world population to increase by each successive billion, from 1B to 10B. Key insight: the intervals shrank from all of human history up to 1805 to a minimum of 12 years for four consecutive increases between 1974 and 2022, then are projected to lengthen under the UN medium-fertility variant. Bars with durations and year ranges: - 1B: all of human history up to 1805. - 2B: 121 years, 1805 to 1926. - 3B: 34 years, 1926 to 1960. - 4B: 14 years, 1960 to 1974. - 5B: 12 years, 1974 to 1986. - 6B: 12 years, 1986 to 1998. - 7B: 12 years, 1998 to 2010. - 8B: 12 years, 2010 to 2022. - 9B: 15 years, 2022 to 2037 (projection). - 10B: 23 years, 2037 to 2060 (projection, UN medium-fertility variant). Annotation: chart text notes the latest UN projection is that world population will peak at 10.3 billion in 2084. Footer text: Data source: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022, 2023); UN WPP (2024). Licensed under CC-BY by the authors Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Veronika Samborska. OurWorldInData.org — Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.

Endnotes

  1. As per 2011 estimates from Carl Haub (2011), “How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?” Population Reference Bureau.

  2. See, for example, Kremer (1993) – Population growth and technological change: one million BC to 1990. In the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 108, No. 3, 681-716.

  3. John Hawks, Keith Hunley, Sang-Hee Lee, Milford Wolpoff; Population Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 17, Issue 1, 1 January 2000, Pages 2–22.

  4. This data comes from the UN World Population Division.

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources. This article can be cited as:

Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, and Veronika Samborska (2023) - “How has world population growth changed over time?” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-135001/population-growth-over-time.html' [Online Resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

BibTeX citation

@article{owid-population-growth-over-time,
    author = {Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie and Veronika Samborska},
    title = {How has world population growth changed over time?},
    journal = {Our World in Data},
    year = {2023},
    note = {https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-135001/population-growth-over-time.html}
}
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