The World at 7 Billion: Where Do You Fit In?

  • Share
  • Read Later
BBC

By the time Christopher Columbus died, there were only 500 million people on Earth. By 2050, the U.N. expects that number to swell to 9.3 billion. That said, I am the also the 4,985,259,234th person to be alive on this planet.

The BBC has a tool to figure out your birth order (and we’re not talking about siblings and whether Judy was the favorite) among the people currently alive today. They’ll also stack you up against your country of residence and gender, and how you compare against the 908 bajillion* people currently breathing in oxygen at this very moment.

It’s no doubt the statistics are a bit staggering, but it’s estimated that the 7 billionth baby will be born on October 31 in India. It’s a sobering fact that in about 40 years, we can expect to share that space with 2 billion more people with, hopefully, a clearer answer on how to give everyone else a piece of the resource pie.

SPECIAL: The World at 7 Billion

Erica Ho is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ericamho and Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

* A bajillion is not an actual number, in case you were unaware.