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Growing population

The world population is the total number of human beings alive on the planet. On 31 May 2009, the Earth's population was estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be around 6,783,557,000 (more than 6.7 billion).

The number of people on the planet has been growing since at least the year 1400AD. There have been occasional slow downs in growth or drops in numbers during wars or widespread diseases (such as the Black Death), but generally the population keeps rising.

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