Video: How the world went from 170 million people to 7.3 billion, in one map

Desdemona Despair

By German Lopez
30 January 2016

(Vox) – Humanity has conquered the world. It’s hard to appreciate what that means, but the video above, by WorldPopulationHistory.org, shows just how incredible the growth and expansion of humanity has been over the past 2,000 years.

Here are some of the notable moments in the video:

• The map begins at 1:18, showing human population a little more than 2,000 years ago, with each yellow dot representing 1 million people in an area. At this point, there are 170 million people on Earth. […]

• At 4:20, the world population explodes thanks to the Industrial Revolution and modern medicine. From 1800 to 2015, the global population grew from about 910 million to more than 7.3 billion. […]

The video itself can get a little dry at points, but what’s really impressive is the fully interactive map at WorldPopulationHistory.org. [more]

How the world went from 170 million people to 7.3 billion, in one map