Population Perspective

Scientists estimate that around 117 billion humans have ever lived on Earth since the dawn of Homo sapiens, approximately 192,000 years ago. Of course, this dramatic increase in the world’s population is a relatively new phenomenon. For many thousands of years, there were fewer people roaming the Earth than would live in a mid-sized city of today.

When considering that 7% of all humans who have ever lived are alive today, especially when measuring across more than a thousand centuries, it’s remarkable that such a large portion of humans are currently living. It was only in 2007 that the majority of humans began to live in cities, and in 2018 that the majority gained access to the internet. While we’ll never meet the 109 billion humans who laid the foundation for our modern societies, we’ve never been more connected as a species.