All the world: A village of 100 people

How can I better visualize the world as it is today?

Picture of world population today

Raw population statistics can overwhelm us. Here's one way of visualizing the world and its economics, housing, health care, religious affiliation and education: Shrink the earth's population to one village of exactly 100 people who mirror the earth's racial, economic and other ratios.

Applying existing ratios, here's what that village would look like:

• Where the villagers would be from:
  • 60 would be from Asia
  • 12 would be European in origin
  • 15 would have come from the Western Hemisphere (9 Latin Americans, 5 North Americans, and 1 from Oceania)
  • 13 would be from Africa
• Sex / Gender:
  • 50 would be female
  • 50 would be male
• Skin coloring
  • 80 would be non-white
  • 20 would be white
• Villagers' religion:
  • 67 would be non-Christian
  • 33 would label themselves as "Christian"
• Economics in the village
  • 20 people would be receiving almost 90% of the village's total income
• Housing in the village:
  • 25 would live in substandard housing
• Literacy in the village
  • 17 would not be able to read at all
• Nutrition in the village
  • 13 would be malnourished
• Life and death
  • 1 would die within the year
  • 2 would give birth within the year
• Educational levels of the villagers
  • 2 would have a college education
• Access to technology
  • 4 would own a computer device of some kind

Data compiled from documents published by Britannica Book of the Year, Habitat for Humanity, International Herald Tribune, the U.S. Census Bureau, the United Nations, UNESCO, and UNICEF. Research by Rekha Balu, Christine Engelken, and Jennifer Grosso.

This list is not presented to cause guilt. It is simply a way of helping us grasp the picture of reality.

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