Population size and population composition – Analyses7 billion people on earth

According to the UN the world's population will reach 7 billion inhabitants on October 31, 2011 and continue to grow to 8 billion people till about 2025. Demographic growth is slowing down, however: Having reached a peak of more than 2 percent annual growth fifty years ago, it has decreased by half (1.1 percent in 2011) and will continue to fall until the world's population will stabilize a century from now at a level of about 10 billion people. One of the most stunning future developments is the impressive growth of the population in Africa which – Northern Africa included – will quadruple in the next 100 years despite the continuing threat of AIDS and pass from 800 million in 2000 to 3.6 billion people in 2100.