Talk:Estimates of historical world population

Millions, thousands, or full numbers?
I think the full numbers (like "1,000,000,000") take up a lot of space (a problem if more columns are added later, but not really a problem at the moment), and also includes a lot of meaningless zeros - most values in the table are at best accurate to the nearest million only. Therefore, I prefer giving numbers all numbers "in millions" (like 1000 for one billion).

The obvious disadvantage is that some of the numbers, having decimal protions because they are given to e.g. the nearest half million or nearest thousand, do not align well in the table. I can imagine several ways to deal with that:
 * 1) Leave it as full numbers.
 * 2) Use millions and accept the not-so-nice alignment.
 * 3) Align the million numbers on the decimal point (but how do you do that in wiki format?).
 * 4) Round all figures to the nearest million - that would hardly loose any reliable significant digits anyway. The full numbers could be left as comments in the source.
 * 5) As a compromise, give all numbers to the nearest thousand (a choice used in World population).

So what do you think?--Niels Ø 09:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Noe. Thanks for presenting all the option        s.  I like the whole numbers because they are very clear (everyone understands "7,851,455,000" but I don't think everyone will understand "7,851.455 in millions").  I don't think "1000 for one billion" is intuitive or straightforward.  I believe alignment is paramount in tables, because it allows for the easy comparison of numbers.  Compare:


 * {|| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right;"


 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9,075,903,000
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9,243,000,000
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9,000,000,000
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 8,918,724,000
 * }


 * {|| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right;"


 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9075.903
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9243
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 9000
 * - style="text-align:right;"
 * 8918.724
 * }


 * I also put footnotes on the left of the numbers in order to avoid messing with the alignment, even though it seems a bit awkward. If the table becomes too large, we could split it or reduce the font size to 90%.  Thanks for starting the page! — Reinyday, 17:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Note on years
The following text has been in and out of the article a number of times. I guess it may not belong in the article, but then I think it belongs here in the talk:
 * Year 1950 of course means 1950 CE, but negative years can be interpreted in two different ways. The mathematically most meaningful interpretation is to let 0 represent year 1 BCE, and year -1000 represent 1001 BCE. A more straightforward interpretation is to let -1000 mean 1000 BCE, but then year 0 means nothing at all. In the table in the article, either interpretation may be used - the slight difference is irrelevant for our purposes. Similarly, -1 000 000 may mean 1 000 000 BCE, 1 000 001 BCE, or 1 000 000 BP (Before Present), i.e. about 998 000 BCE (writing around year 2000).

--Niels Ø (noe) (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC) I have not checked all the sources giving data before AD 1, but unless they all use astronomical year numbering, the present text above the table about year numbering is misleading.--Nø (talk) 09:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Why the historical estimates compiled by the US Census averaged?
That table itself is a good summary of original works by different researchers. It's much better to cite original works by Biraben (1979, 1980), Durand (1974), Haub (1995, Haub is a member of PRB and his estimates are already tabulated as PRB in this article), UN (1999, together with the esitmates after 1950 which are already tabulated in this article), and especially, McEvedy and Jones (1978). I found that Thomlinson's work is just using older estimates by Carr-Saunders (1936) and UN Demographic Yearbooks and not the work to be cited here.

Kremer's estimates (1993) for the period from -10000 to 1900 are perfectly the same with the estimates by McEvedy & Jones (1978) and those for the period from 1920 to 1980 are those by the UN Statistical Yeabooks (1952 and 1985/6 editions) (actually referred in the article). Kremer's estimates should be deleted.

I haven't read Ponting's book, but most (not all) of its estimates are the same with those by McEvedy & Jones (1978). I suspect Ponting's estimates are rather to be deleted.

Also I think about.com's data are not the work to be cited here. It is not clear who have estimated (maybe by Matt Rosenberg) and also estimates are similar to those by UN Census Bureau and those by Thomlinson. (Maybe compiled based on the table of US Census Bureau.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aurichalcum (talk • contribs) 08:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)  Sorry, I forgot signature.Aurichalcum (talk) 09:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I compiled the original version of this table years ago from the sources I could easily find - Ponting in my bookshelf; the rest by googling. A more critical version, replacing secondary sources by primary ones, would certainly be an improvement. I think UN's values should be presented as such, even though they depend on other sources; stating such dependencies would be good too. - Go ahead if you have the konwledge and energy!--Noe (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I have summarized all the data in the original works cited in this article or in the U.S. Census Bureau's Historical Estimates of World Population, except for some year-to-year data presented in the US census of Bureau (2008) for the period of 1950-2050 and Maddison (2001) for the period of 1950-1998. Ponting's book is not cited, for I havn't read it by myself. Population are presented in millions.


 * USCB (2008): Latest estimates by U. S. Census Bureau.
 * UNPP (2006): Data from World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision.
 * UN ESA (1999): Data from The World at Six Billion (1999).
 * PRB (2007): Data from Carl Haub, 2007, "2007 World Population Data Sheet." Data for 2006 and 2005 are from "2006 World Population Data Sheet" and "2005 World Population Data Sheet."
 * PRB (1995): Carl Haub, 1995, "How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?" Population Today, Vol. 23 (no. 2), pp. 5–6. Data for 2002 are from Population Today, Vol. 30 (no. 8), pp. 3–4.
 * Maddison (2001): Angus Maddison, 2001, "The World Economy: A Millenium Perspective", OECD, Paris.
 * Tanton (1994): John H. Tanton, 1994, "End of the Migration Epoch? Time For a New Paradigm," The Social Contract, Vol. 4 (no 3), pp. 162–173.
 * Kremer (1993): Michael Kremer, 1993, "Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990", Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 108 (no. 3), pp. 681–716.
 * Biraben (1980): Jean-Noël Biraben, 1980, "An Essay Concerning Mankind's Evolution", Population, Selected Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 1–13. This article is translated from the original French paper, though figures are slightly updated from the original paper: Jean-Noël Biraben, 1979, "Essai sur l'&eacute;volution du nombre des hommes", Population, Vol. 34 (no. 1), pp. 13–25.
 * McEvedy & Jones (1978): Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, 1978, "Atlas of World Population History," Facts on File, New York. ISBN 0-7139-1031-3.
 * Thomlinson (1975): Ralph Thomlinson, 1975, "Demographic Problems: Controversy over population control," 2nd Ed., Dickenson Publishing Company, Ecino, CA. ISBN 0-8221-0166-1
 * Durand (1974): John D. Durand, 1974, "Historical Estimates of World Population: An Evaluation," University of Pennsylvania, Population Center, Analytical and Technical Reports, Number 10.
 * Clark (1967): Colin Clark, 1967, "Population Growth and Land Use," St. Martin's Press, New York. ISBN 0-333-01126-0

Estimates before 10,000 BC seem unmeaningful, for the obscured definition of human beings (Homo sapiens, the genus Homo, or all fossil Hominids). Estimates after AD 2050 are also not trustworthy.

Estimates by UN PP (2006) and UN ESA (1999) can be combined as UN estimates. Estimates by PRB (or Haub, 2007) and PRB (or Haub, 1995) can be combined as PRB estimates. At least Kremer's estimates should not be cited. I think Ponting's estimates are also too similar to those by McEvedy & Jones.Aurichalcum (talk) 13:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)Aurichalcum (talk) 14:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

HYDE 3.0 may be another good source for the population estimates. http://www.mnp.nl/en/themasites/hyde/index.html Aurichalcum (talk) 08:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I shall revise the table tomorrow as follows:


 * Hi Aurichalcum, I'd like to say that I am very happy someone has taken a critical look at this article that I started a while ago. I'm no expert, but it looks as if you know what you are doing, and that the article is now in a much better shape. Thanks!--Noe (talk) 09:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Could we please have a graph to show this frightening trend? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.68.22 (talk) 19:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, this page is merely a deposit for raw data from the cited sources; graphs and such should go on the main page, World population.--Noe (talk) 20:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Aubuchon (2014)
The column for Aubuchon (2014) appears to be estimates created by just some guy with his own website. The source given is http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/history/world-population-growth.htm, he says he gets his figures from "US Department of Commerce, plus other research. There are many estimates of population for various time periods. The reporting categories change over time, introducing discrepancies that must be resolved. I have selected the numbers which are the most consistent among experts in the demographics field." In other words this is just an ordinary person with no academic background who has compiled a list of estimates from other sources and "selected" the numbers which he thinks are the most "consistent". Here is the authors page about himself http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/author-bio.htm, now don't get me wrong I'm sure he's a very smart guy who has read books on the subject, but he is just not a legitimate source for Wikipedia (indeed in many other parts of his website he mostly uses information from Wikipedia). His list is just a personal estimate, not an academic, peer reviewed publication. So I really think that the Aubuchon (2014) column should be removed from the article. --Hibernian (talk) 17:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I have just seen that the Rosenberg (2014) column is also not an actual academically researched dataset, it's just a (very vague) estimate from some random website. It uses the same figures as the actual proper sourced estimates and just rounds them up. This was added by the same editor that added "Aubuchon", User:King1257 (talk / contribs). This also should be removed. --Hibernian (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok it is fixed now. Sorry for the mistake King1257 (talk) 20:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok no problem, thanks for removing them then. --Hibernian (talk) 19:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

WWII and population estimates for 1935-1950?
I see that most yearly population estimates do not go back before 1950. I am researching for a project that aims to show the effect that WWII had on world population and world mortality rates. I am finding a lot of research that uses population estimates to determine WWII death counts on a country basis, but I am having trouble finding estimates that show a timeline of the world statistics during the war. Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neilhalloran (talk • contribs) 15:02, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Maddison Group out of whack
I was noticing the numbers for the Maddison Group (2010) study are totally out of whack with the numbers from any other study listed, with them reporting much lower numbers before around 1990 and much higher numbers after that point. If we extrapolate their numbers to the present, we'd get a world population of well over 8 billion, which I don't think anyone believes.

Is there any reason why we should be including them on this page? BeIsKr (talk) 16:57, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I just removed them - I looked at the source and the numbers posted here are their figures for world GDP per capita, not population. Thorn (talk) 13:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Also on this topic, the dates for this "World Population Estimates, 20 Countries and Regional Totals, 0–2000 AD (in thousands)" were out of whack with the citation ("Maddison. "Growth of World Population, GDP and GDP Per Capita before 1820" (PDF)." That looks like a rather inadequate citation to me formatwise, btw, though it works as long as the link to the pdf works.) I've changed the dates "1800", "1900", and "2000" to "1820", "1913", and "1998" because those were the actual dates who's numbers were being used and little or no population data for 1800, 1900, or 2000 was given anywhere in the pdf cited.DubleH (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

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Historical population beyond 2015
When will we see numbers for 2016, which now is more than 3/4 completed? MaynardClark (talk) 06:02, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Historical population estimate dissonance
When will we see an essay or paragraph accounting for the differences in calculations or estimates on total world population at any particular year? MaynardClark (talk) 06:02, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

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History
How many people do scientists hypothesise there were in Britain in 10,000BC? 2.101.4.2 (talk) 09:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

UN Estimates Pie chart
It might be a good idea to change Asia and Africa to other colors. - Gorba (talk) 05:29, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Tanton (1994)
Tanton (1994) is as a political piece penned by "an American ophthalmologist, white nationalist, and anti-immigration activist." Tanton incorrectly cites McEvedy & Jones (1978) for his AD 1 figure, seemingly misreading the X axis. It clearly was not meant to be a rigorous reference of historical population estimates. BarrowSys (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Mucking up the numbers
I noticed a typo in the table under "Historical numbers", which led me to look at the last few edits & start wondering about the possibility of subtle vandalism here. (Changing numbers in a table is a depressingly easy way to vandalize a page without getting caught & the vandalism will persist for years.) Specifically, the numbers at 1700 look suspicious. So is anyone vetting the edits? I'd do it myself, but editing from an iPad does not make that easy -- as well as the amount of time this would require. If someone does this, then this page should be semi-protected to allow us to trust the information reported here. -- llywrch (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Can you reverse this edit? Someone edited the numbers with false information providing any reference.
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estimates_of_historical_world_population&diff=1125343664&oldid=1125339900 2600:1700:1431:1270:4DA5:475B:794F:2DE0 (talk) 05:17, 1 September 2023 (UTC)