Back Stories » Asia » Map: More Than Half of the World's Population Lives Within This Circle

It’s well-known that Asia is the world’s population center (thanks, China and India!) with 51% of the global population. But this fact is slightly mind-blowing when illustrated visually. Reddit user, valeriepieris, created the image above which shows just how little space this huge number of people occupies.

Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the global population is roughly 7,083,460,000, with the encircled countries having a population of 3,637,830,357, which works out to about 51.4% of the total.

Asia’s population has long been the largest in the world according to NPR. Even as countries like Japan and South Korea battle declining birth rates, Asia’s overall population is expanding at a rapid pace. A report released by the UN last year predicted that by 2050, 3.3 billion people will live in Asia's cities.

Vietnam’s General Statistics Office expects the country’s population to grow to between 111 – 119 million by 2049.

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