Explore Continents

Africa

Explore countries in Africa

Asia

Explore countries in Asia

Europe

Explore countries in Europe

North America

Explore countries in North America

South America

Explore countries in South America

Oceania

Explore countries in Oceania

About the World
Globally, the 20th century was marked by: (a) two devastating World Wars; (b) the Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d) rapid advances in science and technology; (e) the Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations; (f) a sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan; (g) increased concerns about environmental degradation including deforestation, energy and water shortages, declining biological diversity, and air pollution; and (h) the ultimate emergence of the US as the only world superpower. The planet's population continues to expand at a fast rate: from 1 billion in 1820 to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1999, 7 billion in 2012, and 8 billion in 2022. For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine and agriculture) and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war).
Population
What is the current World Population?. The world's current Population estimate is. 8,057,236,243.
Languages

most-spoken language: English 18.8%, Mandarin Chinese 13.8%, Hindi 7.5%, Spanish 6.9%, French 3.4%, Arabic 3.4%, Bengali 3.4%, Russian 3.2%, Portuguese 3.2%, Urdu 2.9% (2022 est.)

most-spoken first language: Mandarin Chinese 12.3%, Spanish 6%, English 5.1%, Arabic 5.1%, Hindi 3.5%, Bengali 3.3%, Portuguese 3%, Russian 2.1%, Japanese 1.7%, Punjabi, Western 1.3%, Javanese 1.1% (2018 est.)

note 1: the six UN languages - Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian, and Spanish (Castilian) - are the mother tongue or second language of about 49.6% of the world's population (2022), and are the official languages in more than half the states in the world; some 400 languages have more than a million first-language speakers (2018)

note 2: all told, there are estimated to be 7,168 living languages spoken in the world (2023); approximately 80% of these languages are spoken by less than 100,000 people; about 150 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people; communities that are isolated from each other in mountainous regions often develop multiple languages; Papua New Guinea, for example, boasts about 840 separate languages (2018)

note 3: approximately 2,300 languages are spoken in Asia, 2,140, in Africa, 1,310 in the Pacific, 1,060 in the Americas, and 290 in Europe (2020)

.
Some important facts

Space Facts

Currenctly, in terms of Space agencies, more than 70 countries have national space agencies (2024), and more than 30 countries have existing or planned commercial or government space launch sites (2024)

Refugees and internally displaced persons

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that as of mid-year 2023 there were 110 million people forcibly displaced worldwide; this includes 62.5 million IDPs, 36.4 million refugees, 6.1 million asylum seekers, 5.3 million others in need of international protection; the UNHCR estimates there are currently more than 4.4 million stateless persons as of year-end 2022 (the true number is estimated to be significantly higher)

Nuclear energy

The World's estimated mumber of operational nuclear reactors are 416 (2023) and the Number of nuclear reactors under construction are 59. As for the Net capacity of operational nuclear reactors, we have 374.67GW (2023)

Economic Facts

Dominated by the onrush of technology, especially in computers, robotics, telecommunications, and medicines and medical equipment; most of these advances take place in OECD nations; only a small portion of non-OECD countries have succeeded in rapidly adjusting to these technological forces; the accelerated development of new technologies is complicating already grim environmental problems