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Population growth
References & Edit History Related Topics
Images
Side-by-side line graphs compare exponential and logistic population growth. The exponential growth graph shows a curve rising steeply upward, while the logistic growth graph shows an S-shaped curve leveling off at the carrying capacity of the environment. Line graph showing cyclical rises and falls in snowshoe hare and lynx populations from 1855 to 1925, with hare numbers peaking before lynx numbers, illustrating predator-prey dynamics. Snowy forest background and a legend with animal illustrations identify each species. A multi-line chart titled “Fertility rates through the decades” shows fertility trends by global region from 1950 to 2050, with years on the horizontal axis and fertility rates from 1 to 7 on the vertical axis. Each region is represented by a colored line: Africa in light brown remains the highest throughout, peaking above 6 in the 1960s before steadily declining toward 3 by 2050. Asia in light gray begins above 5, declines sharply after 1970, and falls just above 2 by 2050. Central and South America in dark gray follow a similar decline from around 5 to below 2. Europe in dark gray-purple starts near 2.7, falls below the replacement line in the 1970s, and remains near 1.5. North America in light teal declines from around 3.5 to about 1.8. Oceania in dark blue peaks near 4 in the 1960s and declines to about 2. A red line for the world average trends downward from about 5 to below 2. A black dashed horizontal line marks the replacement rate at roughly 2.1. The area from 2024 to 2050 is shaded to indicate projected. global warming scenarios

Population growth: References & Edit History

Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

  • Fatima Foflonker
    Fatima Foflonker is a computational biologist, with a Ph.D. in microbiology and expertise in algae, evolutionary genomics, and bioinformatics.

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

Article History

Type Description Contributor Date
Article title updated for style. Nov 04, 2026
Add new Web site: Engineering LibreTexts - Population Growth Models. Aug 29, 2026
Add new Web site: Pew Research Center - Main Factors Driving Population Growth. Jul 15, 2026
Add new Web site: ESPN - Inside the rebirth of Roman Reigns: From hated to hero and back again. Jul 15, 2026
Add new Web site: CCCS Open Textbooks - The Ecosphere and Environmental Issues - Population growth. Apr 04, 2026
Add new Web site: NOVA Open Publishing - Introduction to Cultural Geography - Population Growth. Dec 04, 2025
Added interactive media. Dec 03, 2025
Add new Web site: ABC listen - Ockham's Razor - Beyond population growth. Oct 16, 2025
Add new Web site: Raider Digital Publishing - Introductory Biology 2 - Population Growth. Jun 25, 2025
Add new Web site: Denison Digital Commons - Population Growth, Biofuels, and the Meat of the Future (PDF). May 17, 2025
Add new Web site: UCL Discovery - Population growth (PDF). Mar 20, 2025
Add new Web site: National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Major Trends in Population Growth Around the World. Aug 22, 2024
Add new Web site: Nature - Knowledge Project - An Introduction to Population Growth. Jul 05, 2024
Add new Web site: University of California - Understanding Global Change - Population growth. Apr 11, 2024
Add new Web site: University of Minnesota Pressbooks - Population Growth and Regulation. Nov 10, 2023
Add new Web site: Khan Academy - Thomas Malthus and population growth. Nov 03, 2023
Add new Web site: OpenStax - Biology 2e - Human Population Growth. Aug 31, 2023
New article added. Jun 08, 2023
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