It’s difficult to appreciate how far mankind has come over the last few centuries, but this video by WorldPopulationHistory.org certainly helps…
The infographic catalogues the growth of humanity over the past 2,000 years. Through war, invasions and disease you just see how the human race still seems to struggle on, before technological advances in the last couple of centuries see the population massively increase.
At the beginning of the clip you see the population at just 170 million people, with each yellow dot representing one million people in a certain region.
By the time the video gets to the 13th and 14th centuries, you see a bit of a dip in the population as a Mongol invasion of China sees tens of millions of people die in one of the deadliest wars in history.
This is swiftly followed by the Black Death which kills more than 20 million people in Europe and 75 million people around the world.
But once humanity gets through the dark ages, the population explodes thanks to major advances in modern medicine and the Industrial Revolution. In just over two centuries the world population grows from 910 million to more than 7.3 billion.
They then predict our population expanding to nearly 9.6 billion by 2050.
What’s even more impressive is their interactive map on their site. You can zoom in and trawl through the centuries to see how world events effect mankind.
You can check it out here.
