The world population is soon set to exceed 7 billion, with population growth doubling in the last 50 years. Enter your date of birth to see what number you are. (When I was born born, I was the: 2,467,548,778th person alive on Earth and the 75,440,962,022nd person to have lived since history began)

Check it out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

We seem to be much the same age, surdoux. I was number 2,408,862,285.

2,939,784,851st

3,051,837,277th

3,201,691,980th

Hmm. I might use those numbers when I play Keno this week

3,143,338,695th

I guess I'm the youngest so far at

4,259,755,507th person alive on Earth
78,737,867,678th person to have lived since history began

When you were born, you were the:
2,290,796,387th
person alive on Earth
74,767,125,989th
person to have lived since history began

Am I alone in thinking that doesnt seem like so many? I thought it would be an unrecordable number somehow... weird.

When you were born, you were the:
2,585,977,117th person alive on Earth
75,799,722,886th
person to have lived since history began

The trouble is that the amazingly precise-looking numbers are based on estimates. (After all, in various places and at various times there were no full records of births - or no records at all). I suppose it might be more accurate to give a likely range, but that would spoil the fun.

Ren33, I agree with you. It does seem rather "small"...however, compared to you and I all the others here are "babies"!!!

5,120,362,965th person alive on Earth
80,089,880,072nd person to have lived since history began

I was the 4,463,334,345th person born on Earth. In the amount of time it took to figure that out the population increased by 81. How do we feed everyone?

ren, I think it's because it's only once the numbers got big that it really got going. The rate of increase is interesting to track - here's what Wiki has to say:

"It is estimated that the population of the world reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It would be another 122 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to rise by another billion people, reaching three billion in 1960. Thereafter, the global population reached four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, by some estimates, seven billion in October 2011"

So it took however many millions of years to get to one billion, 122 years to get to two, and now we're adding another billion every decade or so.

Yeah, because I've kinda grown fond of my own personal number. LOL

Ren, maybe one reason it doesn't look so many is because you're British and we don't count billions like that - the figures shown are mere thousand millions, not million millions. And I am shocked that Auntie BBC has become so Americanised it shows figures like that and says they're billions without even blushing. Shame on you, Auntie Beeb, shame!

I just did an interesting exercise that might open your eyes a bit about large numbers.

Imagine if everyone alive today (say, 7,000,000,000) occupies a single square metre of earth. Which country would you be able to fit the entire population in, and still have room to spare?

Russia? Australia? India? Greece? Puerto Rico? Hong Kong?







7,000,000,000 square metres is equal to 7,000 square kilometers or 2700 square miles.

Believe it or not, with an area of 8,800 sq km (3,400 sq miles), Puerto Rico could accommodate ALL of us, and still have over 1,800 square kilometres (700 square miles) left over.

Then we'd have plenty of space here in Texas!

I can't tell you what my numbers are because then you'd know my age! LOL
This was very interesting.
My numbers were 3,138,114,092 and 76,123,486,565.

Thanks for posting this.

My numbers were 2,767,270,436 and 76,164,471,769.

When you were born, you were the:
2,791,305,853rd
person alive on Earth
76,212,470,489th
person to have lived since history began

I must be the oldest here lol

When I was born, I was the:
4,073,196,456th
person alive on Earth and the
78,433,457,242nd
person alive since history began

playmate1111 - not so!

2,332,512,549th when born

74,924,28th,417th since history began

I'm number 3,102,512,177 and 76,812,982,215th.

I wonder how much uncertainty there is in these numbers? :-)

I try to get my students thinking about the uncertainty in their answers (especially those copied straight from excel spreadsheets!)

I reckon there must be at least an uncertainty of 1% (and that would be extremely precise for this sort of thing) so really I'm somewhere between 3.07 and 3.13 billion....

3,043,343,786th when born

76,698,698,669th since history began

Good point Mike...........and what criteria is used to determine "since history began"?
In theory "history" began with the creation or the "big bang" (take your pick).
So was biblical Adam 1 with Eve 2...........and so on?

I was wondering, and was tinkering with it, but the gospel singer George Beverly Shea can't even put his date of birth in there. He can only get to within 11 months of his true age!

Aha! Nobody read the "How did we calculate that" part:

"Both numbers have been calculated using UN Population Division figures. The first is an estimate of how many people were alive on your date of birth. It is one possible value based on global population figures and estimates of growth rates over time. Data before 1950 is less accurate than figures after that date. The second number includes calculations based on the methodology of scholar Carl Haub, who estimated how many people had been alive since 50,000 B.C. His calculation has been amended by the UN to include additional points in time."


I came in at 2,414,832,932nd person alive on Earth and 75,236,277,260th person to have lived since history began. Close enough, I guess, since there don't seem to be any monetary prizes involved.

Very cool site

I came in at 3,749,580,377th person alive and 77,918,754,212th since the dawn of time

Interesting statistic......

When you were born, you were the:
2,423,816,632nd
person alive on Earth
75,271,426,398th
person to have lived since history began