Historical population growth across the world 0-1998| ��ƽ��

Comparison of average annual population growth rates across various regions of the world in selected time periods between 0 and 1998

Characteristic	0-1000	1000-1820	1820-1998
Western Europe (A)	0%	0.2%	0.6%
U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand (A)	0.05%	0.21%	1.91%
Japan (A)	0.09%	0.17%	0.79%
Total: Group A	0.02%	0.2%	0.88%
Latin America (B)	0.07%	0.08%	1.8%
Eastern Europe and former-USSR (B)	0.05%	0.23%	0.85%
Asia (excl. Japan) (B)	0%	0.17%	0.91%
Africa (B)	0.07%	0.1%	1.32%
Total: Group B	0.01%	0.16%	1%
World	0.02%	0.17%	0.98%

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Release date

2006

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Region

Brazil, Europe, United States

Survey time period

0 to 1998

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Until the 19^th century, population growth across the globe was incredibly low. In the first millennium of the Common Era, the world's population grew by an average of just 0.02 percent each year. In Western Europe and Asia, the populations on either side of the millennium were almost the exact same. It was only in the centuries that followed where population growth began to increase, however it was still very low until the 1800s.

Beginning in the 19^th century, a phenomenon known as the demographic transition took place, and the world's population began to grow exponentially. The population of the Americas in particular saw the highest average growth rates in these years, due to the high levels of migration and their smaller starting population size in 1820 compared to most other regions. Overall, the average global population growth rate in the period between 1820 and 1998 was roughly six times higher than the preceding eight centuries, and almost 50 times higher than the millennium before that.