World in Bullet Points
Written by on May 30, 2025
The goal of this page is to provide a quick summary of key statistcs about the world. Deeper Analysis and Explanations are left to dedicated articles and sources. I care a lot about acknowledging the work of other people, so here is a list of websites, associations and institutions from which these data are mostly based.
As always if you think that some of the data are not correct or are presented in a biased way, please let me know ( in a polite way please).
Population
In 2023 the world population was around 8.1 bllion people. In 1993 this number was 5.6 billions. In 1950 there were around 2.5 billions people.
- The U.N expects the world population to peak around 10.3 billions by mid-2080 Source
Population Distribution Source and OurWorldInData
- Around 5 billions (62.2% of the total population) live in Asia
- Around 1.5 billions (19.4% of the total population) live in Africa
- Around 750 millions (9.3% of the total population) live in Europe
- Around 620 millions (7.7% of the total population) live in North America
- Around 440 millions (5.5% of the total population) live in South America
- Around 47 millions (0.6% of the total population) live in Oceania
Income Inequality
Poverty
In 2024 about 8.5% of the world population lived in extreme poverty. In 1994 this number was 34.2%
NOTE: the data here use the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day to define extreme poverty.
In 2024 about 43.7% of the world population lived in poverty. In 1994 this number was 70.6%%
Access To Electricity & Energy Use
In 2022 about 91% of the world population had access to electricity. In some sub-saharan african country this number was less than 25%
Between 1998 and 2022 the share of the global population without electricity dropped from 26.8% to 8.7%. Source
The amount of energy used by each person varies a lot worldwide. A canadian uses 13 times more energy than an indian and 3.5 more than a british.
Fertility rates
The mean fertility rate in the world in 2023 was 2.25 births per woman. This figures varies a lot worldwide with Kenya having a rate of 3.21 while South Korea 0.72
Fertiliy rate worldwide dropped from 5 births per woman in 1950 to 2.25 births in 2023. There seems to be different potential causes:
- Higher level of education and labor participation rate for women.
- Better access to contraceptives.
- Decrease in child mortality rate.