Surprising and not so surprising population counts in the world

[lunatica]

China has a population of 1,341,470,000. That's over a billion.

China has over a billion more people than the US does.

India has the second largest population. They have 1,192,110,000. Over a billion

The US has the third largest population. It has 310,548,000 people. over three million

Believe it or not Russia has a population of 141,927,297

and Japan has 127,390,000 people stuffed into that tiny island!

Mexico has less than Japan. It has a population of 112,322,757

fascinating for those who like this kind of statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

[lunatica]

1. .

[treestar]

2. Thanks

We are a distant third, interesting.

Space clearly doesn't matter. Or it depends on the type of space - Siberia won't attract many and dilutes the space per person.

[lunatica]

3. A lot of these numbers were surprising to me

Like Japan having so many people and even more than Mexico. It's counter-intuitive.

[treestar]

4. Indeed.

The geography of Japan would be interesting to look into. Maybe highly fertile, while Mexico has a lot of desert. Then there is economic development.

Australia is a big as the US but has only 23 million people. The center is a big desert. The center of the US is farmland. So that could be the reason.

[freethought]

5. What's equally interesting are some of the

trends in these population, such the age structure of the populations.

For example: As far as I have read populations in Europe and Japan are aging. The younger generation are having fewer children and women are increasing participation in the workforce.

In India, certain cultural traditions followed by older generations without fail are being abandoned by the younger generation. They're not totally gone by any means but the machinery is starting to turn.

If the US had zero immigration, our population would likely be in decline for much the same reasons that are taking hold in Europe and Japan. Families are smaller and women are increasingly involved in the workforce.

Similar views are slowly taking hold in China as well.

[SheilaT]

6. I recently read a book

that says because of declining birth rates in most of the world, we are fairly near peak population, and even world-wide it will start declining by the middle of the century. Many countries in Europe as well as the U.S. depend on immigration, legal or otherwise, to shore up their economies, according to this author. Very interesting.

[freethought]

7. I have read similar things

in Japan the aging population represents a real problem. Fewer workers are supporting an aging population and there is not a great deal of immigration of any type happening in Japan.

In Europe, they can have immigrants come from eastern Europe to work in the western European countries and the U.K..

Some of the articles I read favored giving illegal immigrants amnesty and citizenship. With an aging population and a declining birth rate among the younger generation, how do you shore up an economy and a tax base? Instead of deportations you turn the illegal immigrants into citizens/taxpayers.

You are correct though, it is interesting.