World Population Characteristics
Compare what families eat in 15 different countries around the world.

The characteristics of the world's population are numerous and varied. Yet, people and organizations select only those characteristics which they consider relevant to understanding the world. Here are just a few examples of the kinds of data and the resulting patterns, non-spatial and spatial.

Optional: The New Internationalist provides useful information on many global topics -- type a key word, such as military, in the Search box at the bottom.

Consider some of the characteristics of the world's population -- if the world is represented by 100 people: gender, regional origins, races, religions, wealth, literacy, food, and housing. Look at a more interesting and dynamic version of these graphs -- click on Play (be patient for the computer to load the data).

The map shows countries with high death rates  -- 3/4 of which are children -- due to hunger. Can you identify the countries?
[Source: The Hunger Site]

Optional: Look at other world maps by the United Nations.

On the map below, the wealth by individuals, families, or corporations are matched with the Gross National Product of particular countries. On the one hand, ten individuals possess more wealth than is produced by 54 countries combined The three richest shareholders of Microsoft own more wealth than do the 600 million people in Africa. The 458 global billionaires have the equivalent wealth of half of humanity. On the other hand, half of humanity lives on less than 2 dollars per day.
The population of countries various over time. Germany's demographic changes illustrates what has happened in other countries, especially affluent countries. In 1889 a large percentage of Germany's population was young and very few were old. This is similar to the poorest Third World countries today. By 1989 Germany's population had changed: notice the impact that World War I and World War II had on the percentage of men versus the percentage of women. After WWII, couples had relatively lots of children -- the post-war baby boom. After the 1960s, couples had far fewer children. In 2000, as the previous population groups get older, they will move up the diagram.

 


Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 February 1996; last revised on 29 January 2009.