Earth crosses the milestone of eight billion inhabitants

A street in New Delhi, the capital of India, which will soon become the most populous country in the world.

AP - Altaf Qadri

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

This Tuesday, November 15 is the date of a demographic turning point: planet Earth is now inhabited by eight billion human beings.

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We are no longer 7, but 8 billion human beings on the planet, according to the models of the United Nations Organization.

on the occasion of World Population Day in July. 

Today, the world's population is more than three times greater than it was in the middle of the 20th century.

But the number of inhabitants on Earth is increasing more slowly than before.

It will have taken 11 years to go from 7 to 8 billion inhabitants.

To reach 9 billion, we will have to wait until 2037. The world population is expected to peak at around 10.5 billion people in the 2080s and to remain at this level until 2100. A slowdown linked in large part in the development of girls' education and access to contraception.

In 2022, the two most populated regions will both be in Asia: East and South-East Asia, which together account for 29% of the world's population, while Central and South Asia is home to 26% of humanity.

First country in terms of population, China will however be robbed of this title next year by India.

Here I can work at least 24 days a month, whereas in my region there is no regular work.

It's hard to live here because there's no water or electricity, but at least we have some income.

In New Delhi, slums under demographic pressure

Sebastien Farcis

But by 2050, it is sub-Saharan Africa which alone will contribute to half of world growth.

Its population should almost double in less than thirty years, the UN tells us, with 2 billion inhabitants at the end of the 2040s, with particularly rapid growth in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.

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• Demography

• UN