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Stories
Stories
Scroll stories from the census: how the world became eight billion, a country turned upside down, and the move to town.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
Four stories
- 8 billionpeople by 13 Mar 2022, on the UN's count, about a billion every 12 yearsHow we became eight billionTwo thousand years of people, in six pictures · 6 pictures
- 0.72children per woman in South Korea in 2023, against 6.06 in 1950A country turned upside downSouth Korea by age, 1950 to 2100 · 5 pictures
- 72 of 100people alive in 2025 have never lived through a year cooler than 1951–1980The only world they have knownThe years since 1880, and the people alive in 2025 · 5 pictures
- 45 of 100people live in a city in 2025, against 20 in 1950Moving to townCities, towns and the countryside, 1950 to 2050 · 5 pictures
Sources and method
The stories are drawn when the site is built, from the same files as the pages they link to: the UN's population counts and projections, the UN's cities, the scholars' estimates before 1950, NASA's temperatures and NOAA's air. Projections are hatched; where the UN gives a range for the whole population, it is drawn. The UN gives no range for each age, or for cities and the countryside, and the stories say so.