In Spring 2000 world population estimates reached 6 billion; that is 6 thousand million. The distribution of the earth's population is shown in this map.
India, China and Japan appear large on the map because they have large populations. Panama, Namibia and Guinea-Bissau have small populations so are barely visible on the map.
Population is very weakly related to land area. However, Sudan which is geographically the largest country in Africa, has a smaller population than Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Tanzania.
Note: Many of the maps' subjects relate to people, so this map serves as a good reference map for comparison with many other maps.
"Out of every 100 persons added to the population in the coming decade, 97 will live in developing countries." Hania Zlotnik, 2005
The size of each territory shows the relative proportion of the world's population living there.
