The Story of World’s Population

　How many people are there in the world?　 At present（2025）, it is considered that there are over 8 billion people.

　The population of Japan is about 122 million. 1.5% of the world, or about 1 in 65 people, is Japanese. This number is same as the that combined population of Italy and France (approximately 60 million each).　 Although the population is decreasing, Japan is still a country with a large population.

　 There are about 200 nations in the world. 8 billion divided by 200 gives an average of 40 million. But there are large nation or micro nation, the nation covered in forests or desert, so population distribution is unevenly distributed.　If you look at each region, where do you see the most population?

Populous countries 　China and India

 　As you can clearly see by looking at the diagram, Asia (around 4.6 billion) has the far largest population by continent.　It is because Asia has China and India (1.4 billion each).  Only these two countries have 2.8 billion people, one third of the world’s population. All of Asia accounts for 60% of the world.

　Other than these two countries, there are many countries with large populations: Indonesia (270 million), Pakistan (230 million), Bangladesh (170 million), Japan (122 million), and the Philippines (110 million). 　Among them, South Asia, including India and its neighboring countries, particularly has amazing population.

　South Korea is smaller in area than North Korea, but in terms of population, South Korea (50 million) is about twice as large as North Korea (20 million).　The case of Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia, the countries with the largest populations are Vietnam (97 million), Thailand (72 million), and Myanmar (54 million).　In Middle East, Iran and Turkey are almost on par with each other, with populations in the upper 80 million. West Asia has a smaller population than East or South Asia.

Africa’s population is rapidly increasing

　The population of the African continent is around 1.4 billion. Surprisingly, the population of India or China is almost equal to the combined population of 54 countries in Africa. In these 54 countries, Nigeria, a West African country known as a soccer powerhouse, has the far largest population (210 million).

　The countries following Nigeria, are Ethiopia and Egypt that are exceeded 100 million in recent years.　Among the countries with an Arab majority, Egypt has the largest population.　About another countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo is over 90 million, Tanzania and Republic of South Africa is around 60 million each, Kenya is over 50 million. However, Africa has been growing rapidly in recent years, and its population is also rapidly increasing, so it may change so much in the future that this article will no longer be useful.

Britain and France are rivals in terms of population？

　On the other hand, in Europe, with the exception of vast Russia (140 million), all countries have less than Japan. Germany, the largest country in Western Europe, has about 80 million.　European countries tend to have smaller areas than countries in Asia and Africa, so they do not have very large populations (about 700 million people including Russia).

　But it is the largest region in terms of population density. Personally, I find it interesting that the population of Britain, France, and Italy is almost the same at 60 million people. In particular, the Britain and France are so competitive that their population rankings change frequently from year to year.

　Ukraine’s population was over 50 million when this country gained independence from the Soviet Union. However, the population continues to decline at a faster pace than Japan due to declining birth rates and migration to other countries. There is no doubt that the Russian invasion that began in 2022 is also accelerating this trend. Russia is also suffering from population decline.

America and Oceania are vast, but…

　You can see that there are surprisingly not so many people in North and South America (North: about 600 million South: about 400 million).

　The United States is the third largest country in the world with over 300 million people, and Brazil is the sixth largest with over 200 million people. Mexico’s population is about 130 million, about the same as Japan’s, and the population tends to be concentrated in these three countries.

　Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia, but it has many cold regions that are uninhabitable, and its population is just under 40 million. In South America, Brazil is followed by Colombia and Argentina, each with about 50 million people.

 

　Oceania has an overwhelmingly small population (40 million in total). Although Australia is vast, it has many deserts and a surprisingly small population (25 million people).

Where is the region are many people?

　So why do so many people live in Asia, especially in East Asia and South Asia? One of the reasons is that it’s warm and comfortable, but it’s said that the main reason is that these countries can harvest rice.

　Rice is said to be a crop with a higher degree of return than wheat or corn. In other words, the amount that can be harvested by sowing a single grain of rice is far greater than that obtained by sowing wheat. For this reason, it is said that it was able to feed a larger population than the wheat culture area, and that the country with the large population was born.

↓All region combined.