Data Exploration: Population
Population Data Introduction By Max RoserAdapted by Mike Papritz and Trevor R. GetzThere are a lot of humans living on the planet today. But for most of our history, our population was much smaller. Demography provides one window into our shared history.1000LLearn more at www.oerproject.com
Population Data IntroductionBy Max Roser2Demography dataWorld history courses require you to test claims made through historical narratives that have a global geographic scope and cover long periods of time. In most cases, the evidence you will use to test these claims covers shorter periods of time and smaller regions of the world. Most of that evidence comes in the form of written text or videos. Some of it is quantitative, which means that it comes in the form of numbers that count people and things. That data is then represented in maps, charts, and tables. Those representations make it easier to understand the data, but you will also get to work with the numbers themselves, if you choose to.One of the most important types of data for this course is demographic. That is the data we begin the course with, and it is also the data with which we will end the course.Demography is an interesting word. It’s made up of two parts that give it meaning. It ends with the suffix -graphy, which appears in many other words, such as geography, cartography, photography, and biography. So, what does the suffix -graphy mean? In short, -graphy means the “study of” something.So, what is demography the “study of”? The word begins with the prefix demo-. This prefix comes from the Greek language and refers to people or population. If we combine the two parts of the word, we see that demography is the “study of populations.” Through your work in this course, you will come across historical demography information or population scenarios that you’ll investigate in order help you understand modern population statistics of today.Human demography in the long termDemography is an important element in understanding the past and the present. It is also crucial in trying to anticipate the future. Demographers study changes in birth and death rates, incidence of disease, life expectancy, and where people live.Over time, of course, the human population has grown dramatically. That’s the biggest demographic trend of them all. From about 250,000 years ago to about 5,000 years ago, there were important shifts in demographics. At the beginning of this time period, there were few people on the Earth and their main activities for survival were hunting and gathering. They were nomads. By 5,000 years ago, migration to new regions and the Agricultural Revolution had sparked the rise in human population we see continuing today.From its modest beginning, human population has today grown to about 7 billion people living just about everywhere on the Earth. In many ways, world history is the story of this growth. Now, you might think that population grows steadily, century after century, and across all the regions of the globe. However, historical demographers have shown in their studies that this has not been the case.The chart below shows the increasing number of people living on our planet over the last 12,000 years. A mind-boggling change: The world population today is 1,860 times the size of what it was 12 millennia ago when the world population was around 4 million—half of the current population of London.
Population Data IntroductionBy Max Roser3Chart 1:The size of the world population over the last 12,000 years. Explore an interactive version of this chart here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-since-10000-bce-ourworldindata-series By Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.What is most striking about this chart is that almost all of this growth happened just very recently. For a long period—from the appearance of modern Homo sapiens up to the starting point of this chart in 10,000 BCE—it is estimated that the total world population was often well under 1 million. Historical demographers estimate that around the year 1800, the world population was only around 1 billion people. This implies that on average the population grew very slowly from 10,000 BCE to 1700 (by 0.04 percent annually). After 1800, however, this slow growth fundamentally changed. From around 1 billion people in the year 1800, the global population has increased 7 times since then. We are now over 7 billion humans.Around 108 billion people have ever lived on our planet. Some demographers estimate that today’s population size makes up 6.5 percent of the total number of people ever born.What are the big patterns driving the history of human global population? What happens when we look at this interpretation of the data—and the data itself—more closely?
Population Data IntroductionBy Max Roser4Max RoserMax is the founder and director of Our World in Data. He began the project in 2011 and for several years was the sole author, until receiving funding for the formation of a team. Max’s research focuses on poverty, global health, and the distribution of incomes. He is also Programme Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development at the University of Oxford, and Co-executive Director of Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit organization that publishes and maintains the website and the data tools that make OWID’s work possible.Image creditsCover: It’s one of the busiest intersections in Tokyo. A lot of people crossing the streets in Shibuya, Tokyo all day. © Takahiro Yamamoto / Getty ImagesArticles leveled by Newsela have been adjusted along several dimensions of text complexity including sentence structure, vocabulary and organization. The number followed by L indicates the Lexile measure of the article. For more information on Lexile measures and how they correspond to grade levels: www.lexile.com/educators/understanding-lexile-measures/To learn more about Newsela, visit www.newsela.com/about.The Lexile® Framework for ReadingThe Lexile® Framework for Reading evaluates reading ability and text complexity on the same developmental scale. Unlike other measurement systems, the Lexile Framework determines reading ability based on actual assessments, rather than generalized age or grade levels. Recognized as the standard for matching readers with texts, tens of millions of students worldwide receive a Lexile measure that helps them find targeted readings from the more than 100 million articles, books and websites that have been measured. Lexile measures connect learners of all ages with resources at the right level of challenge and monitors their progress toward state and national proficiency standards. More information about the Lexile® Framework can be found at www.Lexile.com.OER Project aims to empower teachers by offering free and fully supported history courses for middle- and high-school students. Your account is the key to accessing our standards-aligned courses that are designed with built-in supports like leveled readings, audio recordings of texts, video transcripts, and more. Offerings include a variety of materials, from full-year, standards-based courses to shorter course extensions, all of which build upon foundational historical thinking skills in preparation for AP, college, and beyond.To learn more about the OER Project, visit www.oerproject.com