New study reveals we may have vastly underestimated the world’s population

The current official count of the global population stands at 8.2 billion. However, a new way of estimating rural populations has been discovered, and has revealed that we may have been vastly undercounting people who live in these areas.

According to a new study, led by Josias Láng-Ritter at Aalto University in Finland, we may be underestimating the number of people living in rural regions by at least half. Láng-Ritter said of the findings: “The impacts may be quite huge because these datasets are used for very many different kinds of actions.”

If he is correct, this could have a significant impact on global population levels and planning for public services, including transport infrastructure, healthcare facilities, and risk reduction efforts for natural disasters and epidemics.

However, the findings are currently being disputed by demographers, who claim that they are unlikely to significantly alter national or global head counts, as most of the data comes from Asia and may not be applicable to the rest of the world. 

Understanding the population of rural areas can be difficult, but there are also many surprises in cities, too. Some unassuming small places have a very high number of people per square mile/kilometer, while some populous cities are not as dense as they seem.

Curious? Click through to learn some fascinating facts about population density.