World Population

Essay by sunsetdreamer69High School, 11th gradeA+, March 2006

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As of July 2005, the world population is at 6,446,131,400. The country with the largest population is China, with well over one billion people. The United States has the forth-largest population in the world, with about three hundred million people. The list goes on naming all two hundred and thirty-nine countries. These countries have populations ranging from over one billion, all the way down to forty-five. There is a vast amount of difference in population levels, and in an every-changing world many scientists are predicting that those numbers will continue to rise in most places. While some countries will embrace this reality, others are determined to stop it from happening. Lucky for those negative countries, other scientists are predicting that the population will slowly decrease.

If you were to look at a list of countries in order from highest population to lowest population, you may or may not be surprised by what you see.

The countries with the largest population are also the countries with the highest poverty levels. China for instance is well known for being so over-populated that in some parts of the country female babies are killed at birth to keep the birthrate from going up. India, which is number two on the list, is not only seen a a holy nation to Buddhists, but as a country will poor health situations, bad sanitation, and low provisions such as food and clean water. Bangladesh has been said to be the poorest country in the world. Many organizations and programs, such as a camp I once attended, find ways to raise money specifically for this country. It is easily understood why they have so much poverty, after all, they are number eight on the list with a population of about one hundred and fifty million and rising.

When you arrive at the middle of the list you will still see some well known countries, such as Singapore, Norway, Ireland, and Puerto Rico. Once again the issue of poverty arises, but not to such an extreme as with the top ten countries. These middle level countries are also known for having poverty, but at the same time are known for tourism. Tourism, which sometimes frowned on by locals of the countries, offers an economic boost that would otherwise be non-existent.

The bottom of the list however, contains many countries that are rarely, if ever, mentioned on the news or anywhere else. Niue has a population of only two thousand. And the Pitcairn Islands consists of a measly forty-five people. Its absolutely astounding how some countries can contain so many people they can barely fit them all, and others contain so little that most people have never heard of them. There are many causes of low population, such as low birth rate and high death rate, disease, famine, low previsions, and many other things we may not even know of yet.

Up until about 1000 AD, the world population was at a steady equilibrium. This means that the birth rate and death rate were so close, that the population stayed about the same. That was quick to change though. As soon as 1960's hit, the population started shooting up, and at a rapid pace. As many people know, after the 60's many corrupt things became popular, such as drugs and alcohol. These, along with other factors, contributed to more people having unprotected sex, and therefore more pregnancies. This is regularly referred to as a "baby boom." Between the beginning of the nineteen hundreds and the year 2000, the world population has gone up by millions. The area with the greatest population however, is the Asia Pacific, which contained fifty four percent of the world's people in the year 2000.

Most scientists believe the population will continue to rise, others believe it will slowly start to fall around 2015. With all the different measures some countries are taking to either raise or decrease their nations population, which group of scientists is right will probably remain a mystery until it actually happens. The scientists can predict all they want, but the truth of the matter is that something as un-flowing as population cannot be predicted exactly. Life and death are mysteries that as humans we may never understand, and to try and find a pattern in them is basically impossible. However the studies go on, the research continues, and we continue to hear from the world of science what the population, along with the rest of the world, will be up to in the next hundred years.