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Never before in all of human history has there existed as many people at one time as today.
The most recent population estimates conducted in October 2018 have concluded that 7.7 billion of us exist across the planet
60 percent of us are living in Asia.Another 16 percent of us are living in Africa.
10 percent are living in Europe,while only 7.5 percent of us live in North America
And 5.5 percent of us live in South America
But when you go back in time to 1800 and see that the world population was only 1 billion people back then,it begs the question as to why so many more people exist today than existed in the past.
How many more people can we expect to have in the future, and what kind of problems might that bring along
To answer these questions,it's important to look back through history for some context.
The last time the world population shrunk was the period between 1200 and 1400;largely due to the Mongol conquest in Asia and the Black Death in Europe
Which killed of up to half of that continent's population
In 1340,the world population stood at around 450 million people.
But by 1400 it had dwindled down to just 350 million
It took the entire world nearly 2 centuries to gain back its pre-1340 population.
But from 1500 on,the population has been continously growing
It was slow,at first.Humanity first reached half a billion people sometime in the 16th century.
And didn't achieve a full billion until 1804
It took us over 200,000 years of human history to reach 1 billion people being alive at the same time.
But the next billion would happen much more rapidly.
2,000,000,000 people was achieved only 123 years later,in 1927.
And then,it took only 33 more years to hit 3,000,000,000
And 14 years from there to hit 4 billion
By 2024,the world population will likely hit 8 billion.
So clearly,based on this graph, something during the 19 and 20th centuries that caused our population to explode
But if you look carefully you can actually notice three major population jumps over the span of the past few thousand years.
This most recent one just happens to be the largest
Each of these jumps coincides with a major leap in technology.
The first,was the toolmaking revolution.
Which allowed primitive humans to hunt more efficiently and give them greater access to higher calorie foods,like animal meat.
An increase in the amount of high calorie food led to a gradual population boom for the species.
The second population jump happened during the time of the agricultural revolution,10 thousand years ago.
When humans first began to transition away from hunting and gathering and towards farming
This even further increased the amount of food available,and therefore allowed for the development of cities and civilizations,which of course meant more people.
The final,and most significant leap though,was the industrial revolution.