👥 People of the world
Eight billion of us: how many people live where, how populations grow, age and change, the languages the world speaks and the faiths that crossed seas — many of them finding a home in India.
Maps show India’s boundaries as officially depicted by the Government of India. Pins mark approximate locations.
🌍 How many we are
From 2.5 billion in 1950 to more than 8 billion today — and India, since 2023, the most populous country.
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15 November 2022
Eight billion
The United Nations marked 15 November 2022 as the day the world’s population reached 8 billion. It took 12 years to grow from 7 to 8 billion; it will take about 15 years — until 2037 — to reach 9 billion, a sign that growth is slowing.
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1950 → 2025 → 2050
From 2.5 to 8.2 billion
World population grew from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 8.2 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. According to UN projections it will peak at 10.3 billion by the mid-2080s and then slowly decline as birth rates fall.
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2023
India, the most populous country
In 2023 India passed China to become the world’s most populous country. Indians are about 17 per cent of the world’s people — more than 1.4 billion.
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Every 11 July
World Population Day
The United Nations observes World Population Day every year on 11 July.
🗺 Where people live
People are spread very unevenly over the Earth — crowded into a small share of its land.
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90 per cent on 10 per cent
Broadly, 90 per cent of the world’s people live on about 10 per cent of its land. The 10 most populous countries hold about 60 per cent of the world’s population — and 6 of them are in Asia.
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Density of population
The ratio between the number of people and the size of the land is the density of population, usually measured in persons per square kilometre.
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2025
The world’s biggest cities
NCERT’s chart of the world’s most populous cities in 2025 lists Jakarta, Dhaka, Tokyo, New Delhi, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Cairo, Manila, Kolkata and Seoul — two of them, Kolkata and New Delhi, in India.
📈 How populations change
Births, deaths and migration — and why many countries now have fewer children and more elderly people.
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Replacement level: 2.1
The fertility rate is the average number of children a woman is likely to have in her lifetime. A rate of 2.1 is called ‘replacement level fertility’ — the number of children needed to replace the parents. Above it a population is likely to grow; below it, to shrink.
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1963 → 2025
China’s shrinking population
After China’s one-child rule of 1979, its fertility rate fell from 7.5 in 1963 to 1 in 2025. China’s population peaked at 1.43 billion in 2022 and has begun to shrink; by 2050 it is projected to fall to 1.31 billion.
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India below replacement
India’s ‘Hum do humare do’ campaigns from 1952 encouraged no more than two children. After the mid-1980s India’s fertility rate began to fall, and it is now below replacement level — though the population is still growing.
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Census 2001 → 2011
India’s sex ratio
Sex ratio is the number of females per 1,000 males. India’s rose from 933 in Census 2001 to 943 in 2011, when women were 48.5 per cent of the population.
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Measuring human development
A long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living are the key aspects of human development. Knowledge is measured by the adult literacy rate and the gross enrolment ratio in schools.
🗣 Languages of the world
Six languages at the United Nations, four on a Singapore signboard — and hundreds in India.
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The UN’s six official languages
The United Nations has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Each has its own UN language day — French on 20 March, Chinese on 20 April, English and Spanish on 23 April, Russian on 6 June and Arabic on 18 December.
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Singapore’s four languages
Singapore has four official languages — English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay — one of them an Indian language.
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325 languages, 25 scripts
In the late 20th century the Anthropological Survey of India’s ‘People of India’ project surveyed 4,635 communities across the country and counted 325 languages using 25 scripts.
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2004 → 2024
India’s classical languages
India created the category of ‘Classical Languages’ on 12 October 2004, declaring Tamil the first. Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia followed, and in October 2024 Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali were added.
🕊 Faiths across the world
Where great faiths began, how they travelled — and the communities who found shelter in India.
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The Buddha’s message crosses the seas
The Buddha’s message spread through Central Asia to China, Korea and Japan, and through Sri Lanka across the seas to Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia.
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1st and 7th centuries CE
Christianity and Islam
Christianity originated in Palestine in the early first century CE, and Islam in the seventh century CE. Both spread among people of many ethnic origins and languages.
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12th century
Angkor Wat
The Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, built in the 12th century by the Khmer king Suryavarman II, is the largest religious monument in the world. It was first dedicated to Vishnu, with scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata carved on its walls.
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8th–10th centuries
The Parsis
Followers of Zoroastrianism fled persecution in Persia after its Islamic conquest and reached India’s west coast, in present-day Gujarat, between the 8th and 10th centuries. Their sacred fire still burns at Udvada, and India today has the largest population of Zoroastrians in the world.
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From c. 175 BCE
Jews in India
Jews sought shelter in India in several waves. The Bene Israel lived on the Konkan coast south of Mumbai — some scholars say they came around 175 BCE — and later groups settled near Kochi, where the Raja granted them land and they built a synagogue.
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From the 7th century
Arab merchants and India’s oldest mosque
Arab merchants came to India from the 7th century and settled along the west coast in Kerala, Gujarat and Karnataka. In Kerala they became part of the Mappila Muslim community and helped build India’s oldest mosque, the Cheraman Juma Masjid.
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1959
Tibetans in India
In the 7th century Tibet became a centre of Buddhism. After an uprising in Lhasa in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled across the Himalaya and India granted him asylum; he lives in Dharamshala, and Tibetans brought their Sowa Rigpa medicine with them.
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1893
Vivekananda at Chicago
At the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Swami Vivekananda said he was proud to belong to a nation that had sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the Earth.
How we check: population, languages and faiths are from NCERT’s own words; the eight-billion milestone, the UN’s official languages and World Population Day from the United Nations; classical languages from the Press Information Bureau. Every phrase is found in its source when the page is built.