Historical Growth of Global Population

Historical Development of the World's Population

A population is a group of people who live in a territory or a place at a particular moment in time. The development of a population is the result of human history combining with each of the different geographical spaces which the people inhabit.

Population Before the Industrial Revolution

From the Neolithic Revolution onwards, when humans became sedentary and started to develop agriculture, livestock farming, mining, trade, and social organization, population growth has been determined by:

• Agricultural areas (food production)
• The natural environment and its climate (warm or cold periods, droughts)
• Catastrophic events such as wars and epidemics

The world's population grew slowly and unevenly until the 19th century. In the 1st century, the world had 256 million inhabitants, and 384 million in the year 1200. After the Black Death epidemic in the 14th century, which killed thousands of people, the world's population slowly recovered. In 1650, there were 516 million inhabitants and in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution, 791 million.

Global Population from the 19th to 21st Centuries

The Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century and developed significantly during the middle of the 19th century, was a great force for change behind the growth and transformation of human society. As the birth rate increased and the mortality rate decreased, the world's population started to grow at a faster rate. In 1800, there were 890 million people on Earth and in 1900 this figure had reached 1.2 billion. The population doubled within 100 years.

In 1950, there were 2.5 billion people in the world (even though the world population experienced two World Wars that caused many deaths and widespread destruction, and world epidemics such as the 1918–1920 flu). From then on, the rate at which the population grew rapidly accelerated and reached 6 billion people in 2000. Although the growth has recently not been so fast, the population exceeded 7.3 billion in 2015 and it is predicted to be over 8 billion in 2025.