You have now toured every continent. The Continents Compared compared their sizes; now let us compare their people. The UN estimates that about 8.2 billion people lived on Earth in 2025.
| Continent | People (about, UN, 2024) |
|---|---|
| Asia | 4.8 billion |
| Africa | 1.5 billion |
| Europe | 0.74 billion |
| North America | 0.6 billion |
| South America | 0.44 billion |
| Oceania | 0.05 billion |
| Antarctica | no permanent residents |
Key idea
The world has about 8.2 billion people (UN, 2025). About 6 in 10 of them live in Asia. The population is still growing, but more slowly each decade.
Why it works
People live where they can grow food and find water: river valleys, plains, and warm, wet coasts. Deserts, ice sheets, high mountains and the cold far north have very few people. That is why the Ganges plain, eastern China, the island of Java and the Nile valley are crowded, while the Sahara, Siberia and Antarctica are nearly empty.
Worked example: Asia's share
Asia has about 4.8 billion of the world's 8.2 billion people. About what fraction is that?
- 4.8 ÷ 8.2 is about 0.59.
- That is close to 0.6, or 6 in 10.
Answer: About 6 in 10.
Worked example: Is growth speeding up?
The world gained its seventh billion people in 2011 and its eighth in 2022 (UN). Is growth getting faster?
- Growth was fastest in the late 1960s, about 2 percent a year.
- Now it is under 1 percent a year.
- The total still rises, but more slowly.
Answer: No; it is slowing.
Common mistake
It is easy to picture people spread evenly over the land. They are not: about 6 in 10 live in Asia, and huge areas such as deserts and the far north have almost no one. Check a population map before you guess.