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In 2011 a study published in PLoS Biology estimated there to be 8.7 million ± 1.3 million eukaryotic species on Earth. [11] By 2017, most estimates projected there to be around 11 million species or fewer on Earth. [4] A 2017 study estimated there are around at least 1 to 6 billion species, 70-90% of which are bacteria. [4]
The Day of Five Billion, 11 July 1987, was designated by the United Nations Population Fund as the approximate day on which the world population reached five billion. Matej Gašpar from Zagreb , Croatia (then SR Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia ), was chosen as the symbolic 5-billionth person alive on Earth .
More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, [7] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. [8] [9] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, [10] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. [11]
If this trend continues, the rate of growth may diminish to zero by 2100, concurrent with a world population plateau of 10.9 billion. [4] [65] However, this is only one of many estimates published by the UN; in 2009, UN population projections for 2050 ranged between around 8 billion and 10.5 billion. [107]
Many studies have tried to estimate the world's sustainable population for humans, that is, the maximum population the world can host. [5] A 2004 meta-analysis of 69 such studies from 1694 until 2001 found the average predicted maximum number of people the Earth would ever have was 7.7 billion people, with lower and upper meta-bounds at 0.65 and 9.8 billion people, respectively.
Graph of world population over the past 12,000 years . As a general rule, the confidence of estimates on historical world population decreases for the more distant past. Robust population data exist only for the last two or three centuries. Until the late 18th century, few governments had ever performed an accurate census.
The world population's growth to eight billion people in 2022 – up from five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999, and seven billion in 2011 – reflects positive developments across fields such as global health and poverty eradication.
Visual representation of the Logarithmic timeline in the scale of the universe. This timeline shows the whole history of the universe, the Earth, and mankind in one table. . Each row is defined in years ago, that is, years before the present date, with the earliest times at the top of the ch