Talk:World population

percentages by region

the percentages quoted at the start are incorrect. world population is almost 7 billion so a total asian population of 3 billion means the proportion living in asia is about 43.5% not 60%, and the 40% quoted as living in india and china is probably incorrect too. is this a simple error or am i missing something? total population percentages by region (asia + africa + europe etc) only adds up to about 80% too. does someone have the correct figures? cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fixcef (talk • contribs) 20:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Valid point.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 14:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The Population by Region numbers for North America are also incorrect. It states that North America has 352 million. Later in the article, it says that Mexico had a population of 112 million in 2009 and the USA has a population of 311 million. Adding that to Canada's population of 34 million, North America has at least 457 million people. This would be 6.6% of the world population, not 5% as stated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.4.225.30 (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

North America and Latin America

North America here is mixing ethnocentric and geographic terminology, better change for Anglo America and Latin America or for the right geographical content--99.106.183.44 (talk) 10:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

terms should stay consistent since this is an encyclopediaZomputer (talk) 12:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

precision is everythingZomputer (talk) 12:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

intro

I changed wording in intro. Article defined wold population as total population of humans. Zomputer (talk) 13:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This definition was circular. I fixed it before and had to fix it again today. Zomputer (talk) 15:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The 10 most densely populated countries/regions

I suggest to restrict the list of most densely populated countries/territories to entities above 1 million inhabitants, to remove the bulk of microstates currently in it. IMO these are not really notable since they're usually a single urban area, and have no higher pop. densities than similar urban areas contained in larger countries. (Doing this would also reduce the necessity for the "combined top" list below it, which seems rather arbitrary to me.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Billion may be confusing

It would be desirable to avoid the term "billion", as it is understood differently in different countries, meaning either 10⁹ or 10¹². --AngelHerraez (talk) 09:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is really an issue any more, "American style billions" is now the standard throughout the world, even in places that previously used "long billions". See Manual of Style on the issue. Also, this conversation. TastyCakes (talk) 15:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

TastyCakes wrote: "American style billions" is now the standard throughout the world.

That is only true for the English-speaking world - but yes, this is an encyclopaedia in English, and hence "billion" is unambiguous here.--Nø (talk) 15:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

graph

is there newer data available that could be used to replace the graph in the article? 2004 data seems a little old to me. plugwash (talk) 02:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

something is screwy with the intro

Before I logged in it said "The world population is the total population of humans on the planet Earth, currently estimated to be 3 }}}} billion by the United States Census Bureau.", when logged in it seems to appear fine. Plugwash (talk) 02:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

similar experience for me Pgilman (talk) 16:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

projections need to be updated

I'd do it if I had time, but unfortunately I don't. Maybe someone else does? Here's the linkUN World Population Projections: 2010 revision Saritamackita (talk) 22:44, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Mathematical approximations

I removed hyperbolic growth (with a predicted population of infinity in 2025) because the chi-squared statistic is infinity. That is *not* a good approximation. If someone wishes to add it back, with a sourced remark on which domain hyperbolic growth *is* a good approximation, I will not object.Dr.enh (talk) 02:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No-one claimed it was good for extrapolation into the future. I've added it back. If people want more details than a brief mention, I suppose they should go to the cited source. I have NOT read that source myself (and I didn't put the paragraph here in the first place), but years ago I arrived at the same model myself as OR. It works VERY well for 1600-1990, QUITE well for 1400-1990, and not bad at all (relative to its inherent absurdity with the vertical asymptote around 2025 or 2032) for 1000-2000. If I added that in the article, it would be OR, but I think the brief sourced statement is fine as it is (unless of course someone consults the source and feels the paragraph misrepresents it). The model is also referenced further down in the article, so the paragraph cannot just be removed without reworking that.--Nø (talk) 05:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

"In the 1970s there was a belief that 75% of all the people who had ever lived were alive in the 1970s"

Does anyone actually have documentation of this? The source attributes it to a "forgotten author." I say it should be removed unless someone can find a contemporary source which states that "75% of all the people who had ever lived were alive" --98.217.125.6 (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)