UN: 11B people in world by 2100

Still, 48 countries are expected to see a decline by 2050.

Generally, it’s a safe assumption to predict that the world will be more crowded in the future. People are continually reproducing and, barring some kind of major incident, the world’s population is set to rise pretty steadily in the coming decades.

Case in point: The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division recently released an updated set of population projections that estimated the world would reach 11.2 billion people by 2100, a 52 percent increase over current estimates.

As dramatic as this growth would be, some regions of the world are expected to grow far more than others. More than half of the global population growth in the next 35 years is expected to happen in Africa, for example, but on the other hand, some countries aren’t expected to see any population growth at all.

In fact, the latest U.N. population projections finds 48 countries around the world are expected to see their population decline by 2050. It also singles out 11 countries which, for reasons like declining birth rates and emigration, are expected to lose more than 15 percent of their population in the coming decades.

If trends continue, things could get even more dramatic. According to the latest U.N. prediction, some countries are expected to lose more than half of their population by 2100. Of course, these are just projections and things could certainly go another way — the United Nations believes there is a 23 percent chance the world’s population will stabilize or even drop by 2100, for example.