In winter 2006 the world population exceeded 6, 5 billion people, while less than 20 years ago July 11, 1987 the figure stood at 5 billion the entire second half of XX century was accompanied by rapid population growth, the so-called "Population explosion". According to most scientists, the earth is overpopulated, and a further increase in population will lead to a global ecological catastrophe. Some experts believe that the increase in the number short-term nature of the population, and in 2010 will go down. It is known that for millennia the world population was small and grew slowly. The most likely his numbers at the beginning of our era – 230 million, of which 2 / 8 were living in Asia. Over the next thousand years it has grown to 288 million extremely inhibited growth of high mortality and often interrupted by wars, pestilence, famine, leading to an equilibrium between births and mortality.
The growth rate of world population dramatically accelerated since the mid XVIII century, especially in Europe, which was due to the development of capitalism. Ry rapid population growth in America and Australia was caused by the influx of immigration, mainly from Europe. The rapid acceleration of growth in population occurred in the middle of the XX century. If in the first half of it is increased to 1, 5 times, then over the next 37 years – has doubled. After World War II everywhere mortality has fallen sharply, which was mainly due to the discovery and widespread use of antibiotics. Fertility declined relatively slowly, and in some places, temporarily increased. This led to "Population explosion".
But it is characteristic only for developing countries to developed countries, however, population growth has declined, and in some – has stopped. The share of developed countries in the world's population rapidly decreasing etsya from 33% in 1950 to 23% in 1990 recent years, population growth rates are highest in Africa (about 3% per year) and Latin America (more than 2%). In some European countries (Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Germany, Sweden) is a natural decline in population. Today, more than half humanity lives in Asia. The most populous countries in the world – China and India. This is followed by the United States, Indonesia and Brazil. Russian Federation within its borders in 2009 achieved in terms of population (142 million) in ninth place in the world.