How it's worked out
The calculator uses the United Nations' estimates of world population, which are published for each year, and fills in the days in between. The figure for your birthday is an estimate: nobody counts the whole world on a single day, and the UN revises its figures as new censuses come in. Treat it as right to within a percent or two.
World population by year
| Year | People alive |
|---|---|
| 1950 | 2.5 billion |
| 1960 | 3.0 billion |
| 1970 | 3.7 billion |
| 1980 | 4.4 billion |
| 1990 | 5.3 billion |
| 2000 | 6.1 billion |
| 2010 | 7.0 billion |
| 2020 | 7.8 billion |
| 2025 | 8.2 billion |
The world reached its first billion people around 1804. It took until about 1927 to reach two billion, but only 33 years more to reach three. The UN marked the eight billionth person on 15 November 2022.
How many people have ever been born?
The Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 117 billion people had ever been born by 2022, counting back to the first modern humans. The calculator uses that figure, and the number of births each year since, to estimate how many people were born before you. It's a rough figure, since nobody knows how many people lived in prehistory, but it gives a sense of your place in the queue.
Questions
Is the world population still growing?
Yes, by around 70 million people a year, but more slowly than at its peak in the 1960s. The UN expects it to peak at around 10.3 billion in the 2080s.
How many people are born each day?
About 360,000, or roughly four every second. Around 170,000 people die each day, so the population grows by about two people a second.
What else happened when I was born?
Find out what day of the week you were born, or see your full life tally, from heartbeats to how far you've travelled around the Sun.
Is my birth date stored anywhere?
Only in your own browser, so you don't have to type it again on other pages of this site. It's never sent to us or anyone else.