Labs / History

World Population Clock

Watch humanity grow from a few million foragers to eight billion people as the clock sweeps through twelve thousand years. Toggle the great turning points & drag the birth and death rates to see the curve stall at a Malthusian ceiling or bend into a hockey stick. Drag across the chart to scrub to any year.

FarmingPlaguesColumbian ExchangeIndustrial Rev.Medical Rev.Birth rate42.0/1kDeath rate41.5/1kLog scale

Year —Pop —Growth —Doubling —

What to try

Switch off the Medical Revolution. Where does the modern explosion go?
Turn on Plagues and scrub to 1347. How many years does it take the population to climb back to where the Black Death found it?
With only Farming on, why does the curve flatten out instead of rising forever — what is holding it down?
Flip to Log scale. The same wild curve becomes nearly straight lines — what does a straight line on a log chart actually mean?
Nudge the death rate down by a few points with no events at all. Can a small, steady change matter as much as a whole revolution?