World population is set to hit eight billion next week

The United Nations has announced the date when they expect the population of the world to hit eight billion, and it's really, really soon.

Turning the clocks back by a couple of hundred years and you'll reach the point where the planet had hit a major milestone by topping a billion in terms of population for the first time.

A century later and it's thought that the number of people walking around the Earth was no more than two billion.

However, 100 years on in the grand old year of 2022 we're about to hit four times that amount as the global population size is set to hit a staggering eight billion as people live longer and populations continue to grow.

According to the UN's World Population Prospects survey the exact date when the number of people in the world goes from seven billion and something to the new milestone of eight billion is almost here.

For those wanting the exact date it's supposed to be a week on Tuesday, otherwise known as 15 November.

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Another interesting tidbit of information they announced is that next year they expect China to fall behind India as the most populous nation on the planet.

Both countries are home to over a billion people, the only two hold hold that distinction, but India's population growth is set to carry it into top spot by 2023.

While a growing population might mean the world is full of plenty more people to make friends with, and in our modern world there's all sorts of new ways to connect, a growing population also poses some major dangers.

Reaching eight billion people living in the world is a major milestone, but Sir David Attenborough has warned that population growth has got to stop if we want to save planet Earth from catastrophic climate change.

Every new person in the world is someone new to consume more resources and the world is struggling to keep up.

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The latest info does provide some hopeful news on that front, as the data suggests that global population is growing at the slowest rate since the 1950s.

Still, with so many people in the world we're expected to be halfway to nine billion by 2030 and the global population is predicted to peak during the 2080s (if we make it that far) at about 10.4 billion.

The UN report also warned that the proportion of the world's population over 65 is set to grow from a 10 percent chunk to about 16 percent by 2050.

Countries with ageing populations will need to consider how they're going to care for their people.