Population:
7,323,187,457 (July 2016 est.)
top ten most populous countries (in millions): China 1373.54; India 1266.88; United States 324.00; Indonesia 258.32; Brazil 205.82; Pakistan 202.00; Nigeria 186.05; Bangladesh 156.19; Russia 142.36; Japan 126.70
ten least populous countries: Holy See (Vatican City) 1,000; Nauru 9,591; Tuvalu 10,959; Palau 21,347; Monaco 30,581; San Marino 33,285; Liechtenstein 37,937; Saint Kitts and Nevis 52,329; Marshall Islands 73,376; Dominica 73,757
ten most densely populated countries (population per sq km): Monaco 15,291; Singapore 8,416; Holy See (Vatican City) 2,273; Bahrain 1,814; Maldives 1,319; Malta 1,314; Bangladesh 1,200; Barbados 678; Mauritius 664; Lebanon 610
ten least densely populated countries (population per sq km): Mongolia 1.95; Namibia 2.96; Australia 2.99; Iceland 3.35; Mauritania 3.57; Libya 3.72; Guyana 3.74; Suriname 3.76; Canada 3.89; Botswana 3.90

Languages:
Mandarin Chinese 12.2%, Spanish 5.8%, English 4.6%, Arabic 3.6%, Hindi 3.6%, Portuguese 2.8%, Bengali 2.6%, Russian 2.3%, Japanese 1.7%, Punjabi, Western 1.2%, Javanese 1.2% (2016 est.)
note 1: percents are for "first language" speakers only; the six UN languages - Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian, and Spanish (Castilian) - are the mother tongue or second language of about half of the world's population, and are the official languages in more than half the states in the world; some 300 languages have more than a million first-language speakers
note 2: all told, there are an estimated 7,100 languages spoken in the world; approximately 80% of these languages are spoken by less than 100,000 people; about 130 languages are spoken by less 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
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 (2016)

Religions:
Christian 31.4%, Muslim 23.2%, Hindu 15%, Buddhist 7.1%, folk religions 5.9%, Jewish 0.2%, other 0.8%, unaffiliated 16.4% (2010 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 25.44% (male 963,981,944/female 898,974,458)
15-24 years: 16.16% (male 611,311,930/female 572,229,547)
25-54 years: 41.12% (male 1,522,999,578/female 1,488,011,505)
55-64 years: 8.6% (male 307,262,939/female 322,668,546)
65 years and over: 8.68% (male 283,540,918/female 352,206,092) (2016 est.)
population pyramid:
A population pyramid illustrates the age and sex structure of a country's population and may provide insights about political and social stability, as well as economic development. The population is distributed along the horizontal axis, with males shown on the left and females on the right. The male and female populations are broken down into 5-year age groups represented as horizontal bars along the vertical axis, with the youngest age groups at the bottom and the oldest at the top. The shape of the population pyramid gradually evolves over time based on fertility, mortality, and international migration trends.

For additional information, please see the entry for Population pyramid on the Definitions and Notes page under the References tab.

Dependency ratios:
total dependency ratio: 52.3%
youth dependency ratio: 39.7%
elderly dependency ratio: 12.6%
potential support ratio: 7.9% (2015 est.)

Median age:
total: 30.1 years
male: 29.4 years
female: 30.9 years (2016 est.)

Population growth rate:
1.06%
note: this rate results in about 148 net additions to the worldwide population every minute or 2.5 every second (2016 est.)

Birth rate:
18.5 births/1,000 population
note: this rate results in about 258 worldwide births per minute or 4.3 births every second (2016 est.)

Death rate:
7.8 deaths/1,000 population
note: this rate results in about 108 worldwide deaths per minute or 1.8 deaths every second (2016 est.)

Urbanization:
urban population: 54% of total population (2015)
rate of urbanization: 2.05% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)
ten largest urban agglomerations: Tokyo (Japan) - 38,001,000; New Delhi (India) - 25,703,000; Shanghai (China) - 23,741,000; Sao Paulo (Brazil) - 21,066,000; Mumbai (India) - 21,043,000; Mexico City (Mexico) - 20,999,000; Beijing (China) - 20,384,000; Osaka (Japan) - 20,238,000; Cairo (Egypt) - 18,772,000; New York-Newark (US) - 18,593,000 (2015)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
0-14 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
15-24 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
25-54 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
55-64 years: 0.95 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.805 male(s)/female
total population: 1.015 male(s)/female (2016 est.)

Maternal mortality rate:
216 deaths/100,000 live births (2015 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
total: 34.1 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 36.1 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 32.1 deaths/1,000 live births (2016 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 69 years
male: 67 years
female: 71.1 years (2016 est.)

Total fertility rate:
2.42 children born/woman (2016 est.)

Drinking water source:
improved: urban: 96.5% of population rural: 84.7% of population total: 91.1% of population
unimproved: urban: 3.5% of population rural: 15.3% of population total: 8.9% of population (2015 est.)

Sanitation facility access:
improved: urban: 82.3% of population rural: 50.5% of population total: 67.7% of population
unimproved: urban: 17.7% of population rural: 49.5% of population total: 32.3% of population (2015 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.8% (2015 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
36,710,700 (2015 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths:
1,107,600 (2015 est.)

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 86.1%
male: 89.9%
female: 82.2% (2015 est.)
note: more than three-quarters of the world's 781 million illiterate adults are found in South and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; of all the illiterate adults in the world, almost two-thirds are women (2012)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
total: 12 years
male: 12 years
female: 12 years (2014)