This brief highlights several of the most important global population trends in 2002 and describes the continuation and impacts of these trends through 2050.  The material discussed here, as well as demographic statistics for every country of the world, comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Global Population Profile: 2002.

According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, world population hit the 6-billion mark in June 1999.  This figure is over 3.5 times the size of the earth’s population at the beginning of the 20th century and roughly double its size in 1960.  The time required for global population to grow from 5 to 6 billion — 12 years — was shorter than the interval between any of the previous billions.