Longer reads that explain the numbers on this site — written against the same dataset the counters and tables run on, so every figure in an article is current and traceable.
The counter keeps climbing, but the real story is deceleration: growth has halved since the 1960s peak and the UN now sees a summit within this century. The mechanics, explained with the data.
August 2026
For the first time in centuries, the world's demographic engine is changing continents. What the numbers say about the century ahead.
August 2026
2050 and 2100 figures get quoted as facts. They are conditional arithmetic. How the UN builds its projections, where they have been right, and where the uncertainty really lives.
August 2026
Macao and Greenland bracket a 40,000-fold range, and the number in between misleads as often as it informs. What density does and doesn't tell you.
August 2026
Half of Japan is over 50; half of Niger is under 16. Median age is the single number that best predicts a country's economic questions — here is how to read it.
August 2026