1. If the World Were a Village A Book About the World’s People
Written by
David J. Smith
Illustrated by
Shelagh Armstrong
Kids Can Press, 2002

2. Earth is a crowded place.
In 2002, there were 6,200,000,000 people on the earth.
Numbers this big are hard to understand…but if we imagine the world as a village of 100 people, each person in the village would represent 62,000,000 people.
Let’s meet these 100 people.

3. Growth of the Village In 1000 B.C.E., 1 person lived in the village.
In 500 B.C.E., 2 people lived in the village.
In 1C.E., 3 people lived in the village.
In 1000, 5 people lived in the village.
In 1500, 8 people lived in the village.
In 1650, 10 people lived in the village.
In 1800, 17 people lived in the village.
In 1900, 32 people lived in the village.
In 2002, 100 people lived in the village.

4. Growth of the Village At the current growth grate of about 1.6%
per year, the village will be home to 250
people by 2100.
Many experts believe that this is the
maximum number of people the village
can sustain.

5. Nationalities Of the 100 people in the global village:
61 are from Asia 8 are from Latin America
13 are from Africa 5 are from Anglo America
12 are from Europe 1 is from Oceania

6. Nationalities
More than ½ of the people in the village come from the 10 most populous countries:
21 are from China
17 are from India
5 are from the United States
4 are from Indonesia
3 are from Brazil
3 are from Pakistan
2 are from Russia
2 are from Bangladesh
2 are from Japan
2 are from Nigeria

7. Ages 10 people are under age 5 10 people are between 5 and 9
1 person is over 79
1/5 of the village is under age 9
1 person dies and 3 babies are born every year
Life expectancy is 63 years

8. Languages Chinese dialect – 22 people English – 9 people
More than ½ of the people speak these languages:
Chinese dialect – 22 people English – 9 people
Hindu – 8 people Spanish – 7 people
Arabic – 4 people Bengali – 4 people
Portuguese – 3 people Russian – 3 people

9. Religions Of the 100 people in the village… 32 are Christians
19 are Muslims
13 are Hindus
12 practice folk religions (shamanism, animism)
6 are Buddhists
2 practice Baha’i faith, Confucianism, Shintoism, Sikhism or Jainism
1 is Jewish
15 are non-religious

10. Air and Water Fresh Air and Drinkable Water are Necessities…
75 have access to safe water in their homes or within a short walk; 25 do not and must spend a large part of each day collecting water
60 have access to adequate sanitation; 40 do not
68 breathe clean air, while 32 breathe air that is unhealthy because of pollution

11. Food There is plenty of food in the village: 31 sheep and goats
23 cows, bulls, oxen
15 pigs
3 camels
2 horses
189 chickens
There is no shortage of
food in the village. If all the
food were divided equally,
everyone would have
enough food.

12. Food
However….
50 people do not have a reliable source of food and are hungry some or all of the time.
20 people are severely undernourished
30 people would have enough to eat