If we could

The Global Village


Balu, Engelken & Grosso (original often wrongly attributed to Phillip Harter, Stanford)

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be:

60 Asians
12 Europeans
15 from the Western Hemisphere (9 Latin Americans, 5 North Americans, and 1 Oceanian)
13 Africans

Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division World Population Prospects: [The 2000 Revision]

50 would be female
50 would be male

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census International Data Base [Table 094: Midyear Population by Age and Sex 2001]

80 would be non-white
20 would be white

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census International Data Base [Table 001: Total Midyear Population 2001] (assuming the populations of South America, Asia, and Africa are 'non-white' and those of North America, Europe, and Oceania are 'white.')

67 would be non-Christian
33 would be Christian

Source: Britannica Book of the Year 1999 - Religious Population of the World, 1998
(reprinted at infoplease.com, using numbers from the 'Christians' heading only for the Christian percentage)

20 people would earn 89% of the entire world's wealth

Source: The International Herald Tribune - February 5, 1999
(cited in the World Income Inequality table)

25 would live in substandard housing

Source: Habitat for Humanity International [Why Habitat is Needed]

17 would be unable to read

Source: UNICEF [The State of the World's Children 1999]

13 would suffer from malnutrition

Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization report
(cited at OBGYN.net)

1 would die within the year
2 would give birth within the year

Source: U.S. Census Bureau [World Vital Events Per Time Unit 2001]

2 would have a college education

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Education Indicators [Gross Enrollment Ratio by Sex]

4 would own a computer

Source: UN Human Development Indicators [Access to Information and Communications 1995]