Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population/Archive 4

World Population Figure

The World figure, from the UN, is a projection made in 2006 - a bit old now. It is also considerably higher than the US Census Bureau's projection, which is approximately 8,136,677,000. I have created a template which estimates world-population based on the US census bureau's figures, and could be used in the table --JimWae (talk) 04:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

european union figures should be included.

if you include the world, it only makes sense to include the EU, since it is comparable to the US in many important economic and demographic ways... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.26 (talk) 11:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Except for the most important way in that the EU in not a country while the US is. IF (and that is a mighty big if) and when the EU becomes a country (de facto and de jure) it will be included on the list. AND we will remove all the members from the like just like the US member states. --Tomtom9041 (talk) 14:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

This argument has been had dozens of times on this page. Please don't start again. TastyCakes (talk) 21:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

How about doing what they did on the GDP page, so where the EU would fit in, but don't assign it a # - World 1. People's Republic of China 2. India - European Union 3. United States of America 4. Indonesia

Mr. Met 13 (talk) 05:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I really don't see a reason NOT to put it in as long as you don't actualy consider it inside the ranking. Carthradge (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I support this, a lot of people seem to be totally misinformed about the EU. The EU is a sui generis entity, if you dumbly search to make it stick with a pre-existant country form, you will logically and definitely fail, for that there is no precedent.

It should not be added as a "country" to avoid hurting some... sensibilities. But it definitely belong to the list as a not-ranked data, because the European Union is not the Mercosur, African Union or anything. The EU have executive, judiciary, and legislative powers in an original form and even if they don't feel it, as today it cover the daily life of it citizens to a very large extent. For example, the EU citizens elect a parliament producing a common legislation, and this european legislation prevail on the national laws ; the EU also have a Court of Justice, which is the ultimate judiciary juridiction and can break any national judgement infringing the community law, meaning that in spite of what it looks like, the european citizens are ultimately ruled by the same laws. There is plenty of examples. Please let me know when any non-country organization got that sort of power over their member states which usually only states have. :) -Orravan

Kosovo

According to German WP the estimated population of Kosovo is 2,126,708 [1], making the country the 141st in population order. --Camptown (talk) 11:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is Serbia listed including Kosovo's population? China is listed *without* Taiwan's population, and Taiwan's status as a country is less accepted than Kosovo's. Serbia's population (by subtraction of the two numbers) would be about 7.73M. Skalskal (talk) 16:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

German WP, whatever that is, is very smart. They got their information from the Statistical office of Kosova. The SOK is one of the most professional Government office run by international and Kosovar experts. Those numbers are no lie. Kosova2008 (talk) 04:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Kosova2008

UN source

Requesting a link (I can't find it) to the latest UN estimates, Please. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It's reference 1 in the article. --Polaron | Talk 17:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Population clocks

Doesn't really make sense to me why we're using population clocks as sources. They're not official figures, only predictions, and possibly wrong predictions. Wouldn't it be better to just use the official stated numbers, thus only having to update it once a year?Sbw01f (talk) 21:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

So I take it you think that everyone is born and dies on just 1 day each year? What tosh! Wikipedia is a live encyclopedia, and the population clocks being used are those provided officially by the statistical agencies of the country involved! They are reset to whatever number is found after any given Census, and between each Census they provide the best estimate of what the population would be at that time given observed trends. They are far more accurate than outdated figures that may be approaching being a year out of date!202.139.104.226 (talk) 05:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that they're only based on estimates, not official counts. Also, I noticed some of the clocks don't even calculate immigration, meaning their estimates are indisputably incorrect. Sbw01f (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

So no answer? Is anyone going to argue that clocks that don't take immigration into account should be kept over official figures? If so why? Another question is why do you use UN estimates, which (correct me if I'm wrong) are for the year 2005, when there are much more uptodate statistics available from places like the CIA factbook? Sbw01f (talk) 08:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The UN estimates are for mid-2007. The CIA Factbook is quite often off for the less developed countries. --Polaron | Talk 13:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding population clocks, I'd be happy to see those figures removed. Comparing countries is one of the main uses of a list like this, and population clock figures make this awkward because they are generally updated at different times. They also make it difficult to confirm that the figure we show reflects the cited source, because the source has usually changed by the time anyone wants to check. -- Avenue (talk) 06:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

So, are you suggesting that populations remain static? And need to remain static for up to a year before they should be updated? That, my friend, is sheer nonsense!202.139.104.226 (talk) 12:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that population clocks are provided by a perfect oracle? Is shouting "Nonsense!" the best argument you can come up with? Do you really want to trade silly rhetorical questions? Come on, let's get serious.

Maybe in an ideal world, lists like this would incorporate programs to automatically update all the figures according to well-founded and consistent projection models. Well, this isn't an ideal world. We don't have such programs; we don't have such models.

While updating one country's population figure may make that one figure slightly more accurate, making intermittent, piecemeal updates of figures for random countries destroys comparability between countries. It also makes it much harder to check that the figures came from the cited sources.

At the least, anyone changing figures based on a regularly updated population clock should date the source with sufficient accuracy that their edit can be checked. More generally, we need to decide if a list like this should aim for consistency and comparability across countries, or if incremental updates at random times that myopically improve a single figure (but ruin comparisons) are preferred. -- Avenue (talk) 14:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with time-stamping any change with when it was taken - absolutely no problem with that, that is good practice and the format of the table allows for that. In terms of comparability, I would prefer my encyclopedia to be accurate (Isn't that the point of an encyclodpedia - to be accurate, and isn't that one of the greatest qualities of Wikipedia - that it can be up-to-date and accurate before many other sources precisely because contributors are willing to go and find (from a reputable source - and I don't know how you can argue a country's own Statistical Office is not a reputable source - if they're not, why on Earth should we trust any sort of supra-national organisation to be any more accurate?), than comparable - are you saying we should hold up all figures because in a place like Zimbabwe, the only decent comparison that can be made is on figures from 2002 or whenever? And countless other instances around the world like that!202.139.104.226 (talk) 09:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Where are you finding the UN estimates made in 2007? The link in references goes here [2] which says 2006. Anyways, I'm removing Russia's population clock and replacing it with UN figures, since they're one of the ones that don't calculate migration (and no one seems to argue that those should stay). I'll look for others that have the same problem. Sbw01f (talk) 14:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The publication was compiled in 2006 but the estimate listed in Table A.1 is for July 1, 2007. The figures start at p. 57 of the pdf file you linked to. --Polaron | Talk 14:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

China REALLY did change their formula

• var BasePopulation=1321290000
• var PersonPerSecond=0.2159436834

go to http://www.cpirc.org.cn/index.asp and view source code

--JimWae (talk) 07:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Box map

Wouldn't it be very useful to include a box map (or whatever it's called in English) as found for example at [3]? 82.171.200.197 (talk) 07:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Population of Peru( URGENT)

I changed yesterday the population of Peru, because I was checking the INEI (the official statistics bureau of Peru) information. In this web page (http://www.inei.gob.pe) you may click Información Social - Compendio Estadístico 2007 - Población e Indicadores Demográficos - Poblacional - Población total al 30 de junio, según sexo y grupos quinquenales de edad, and in the low part of the list, you may check the total population in 2007, 28,750,770. I don't know why my information was erased. Sorry for my bad English. --Wikiperuvian (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please! it's official information, it can't be inconsistent! the number is there! you only have to confirm the information, enter to http://www.inei.gob.pe and follow the instructions that I wrote above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.43.101.244 (talk) 01:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

percent of world population

Shouldn't the world population be 99.9% ??

You know there are people in space. Just saying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steelersfan7roe (talk • contribs) 08:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Vatican City

Good evening. Perhaps, we can add this source for the population.It is the official page of the Vatican City and it provides some details. http://www.vaticanstate.va/EN/State_and_Government/General_informations/Population.htm --Youssef (talk) 20:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Mexico

Here is an estimate from the official stastical bureau of Mexico. http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/proyectos/integracion/inegi324.asp?s=est&c=11722#tres --Youssef (talk) 16:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Several Errors

As someone who works with statistics all the time, I came upon this page and noticed several egregious errors and was prevented from correcting them. So I'll discuss them instead. A relevant updated source is referrenced right on the World population page in Wikpedia http://www.xist.org/earth/population1.aspx. The ones that jumped out at me were Nigeria over by 10 million (there is an AIDS epidemic there), Iran over by 6 million, The Congo under by 5 million, Mexico under by at least 4 million etc... If the table is not going to provide accurate information, Ithink it should be considered for deletion. TFBCT1 (talk) 21:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

That page uses the CIA World Factbook figures. If you're willing to dive into the archives, you'll find several discussions about why the CIA figures are off for many less developed countries. The UN estimate is generally more consistent with estimates by the various national census authorities. --Polaron | Talk 22:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

For example, taking the case of Iran, one can find the following figures:

• Census (2006): 70,472,846
• Population Reference Bureau estimate (2007): 71,200,000
• UN estimate (2007): 71,208,382 (UN figure is 70,270,178 for 2006 and 72,211,696 for 2008)
• CIA estimate (2008): 65,875,223
• World Gazetteer (2008): 71,028,973

For Iran, the CIA figure is obviously the outlier.

For the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

• Census: no recent census available
• Population Reference Bureau estimate (2007): 62,600,000
• UN estimate (2007): 62,635,722 (60,643,980 for 2006 and 64,703,617 for 2008)
• CIA estimate (2008): 66,514,506
• World Gazetteer (2008): 64,105,984

The CIA appears to overestimate by a bit relative to other common population tabulations. --Polaron | Talk 22:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey Polaron, where did you get the 2008 UN estimate figures? Have they published a list we can cite or did you calculate them yourself using the growth rate estimates? It would be nice if we could update the UN estimates to 2008, it would make a lot of the estimates not seem so off to people that want to use the World Factbook figures. LonelyMarble (talk) 20:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

They're found in the UN Common Database (Table 13660) [4]. The medium-variant number is what I listed. --Polaron | Talk 21:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Please someone look at Armenia. The position is incorrect. 85.187.126.114 (talk) 07:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.187.126.114 (talk) 07:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Malicious Chinese Clock

Hi, I went to the Chinese Population Clock http://www.cpirc.org.cn/index.asp which is linked from the page, but it was riddled with malicious downloaders and trojans! I stongly suggest to remove the link for now and establish a reputable link to a clock. I didnt check any other clock links. 194.46.232.199 (talk) 09:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Malaysia

• While the Malaysian pop clock page was updated, it appears the coding for the pop clock itself did NOT change & will still reset itself again the first of every month --JimWae (talk) 15:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
• The clock is at http://www.statistics.gov.my. Despite the page being updated, the coding was not. It again reset to 27,452,091 on July 1. It is not worth figuring out what date that figure s supposed to be for either - the clock is worthless. Official stats for July 13, 2007 are 27,170,000 - from Department of Statistics Malaysia I contacted them in April or May, but no reply - and the page was updated already w/o correcting the clock --JimWae (talk) 03:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Chile

There is a mistake in Chiles population (I think a . should be a ,) although I don't know where to change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.70.180 (talk) 00:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

 Fixed ☆ CieloEstrellado 20:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Burma

I've changed Myanmar to Burma, since the main Wikipedia page of this country is named Burma.Sponsianus (talk) 16:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Pakistan's population

What is that, some sort of scientific notation? Why is it different than everything else? Zazaban (talk) 19:03, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, the link given in the column "source" only cites a 1998 census that gives a 132 millions figure. The true source should be linked instead. --Iv (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Trojan at India population clock seems to be gone now

McAfee detected a trojan at the india population clock site http://www.indiastat.com/ the other day. It seems to be gone now, but I am reluctant to restore link at least until others have also tested it --JimWae (talk) 05:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Cayman Islands

A recent analysis by a national newspaper puts the population of the country at 62,000. http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=1032528 I would like this page changed to reflect that but the code is too complicated for me. If someone else can do this, I would appreciate it. There are more official sources cited by the article with figures which still top what is listed here and in any event, we are due for a new census next year, so there is no harm in updating the figure now. Travisritch (talk) 06:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Population of Pakistan

Its 172,800,000 not 164,000,000 as it says in the article. Some one change it please.--SergeiXXX (talk) 19:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Italicized names?

As far as I can tell there's no explanation on the page currently about why some countries' names are italicized. Perhaps it was there at one point and got lost...? --Jim Henry (talk) 20:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The italicized names are for the semi-recognized countries, Jim.--SergeiXXX (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

                       POPULATION OF BRAZIL
         The population estimate are 200,000,000 in total 2008

Inconsistent Spain vs. Sweden

Text has Sweden 7th largest in Europe and Spain 6th, but Sweden is ahead of Spain in the list —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igodard (talk • contribs) 18:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Ireland

the official name of the country is Ireland not Republic of Ireland. WIkipedia disambiguates that to Republic of Ireland to avoid confusion with the island of Ireland (a controversial decision but that is the current position). In his case we have a list of COUNTRIES, so there is no issue of any ambiguous meaning and the proper name of the country should be used. --Snowded TALK 12:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Sealand not Included

Sealand's population of 27 is not included in this article, and should be promptly added.

can you find definitive proof that Sealand is an actual country? --smadge1 (talk) 05:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)