Population News: World population by country: UN guesses the shape of the world by 2100

World population by country: UN guesses the shape of the world by 2100: "

What is the world's population according to the latest UN estimates? See when it will hit 10 billion - and which countries are growing fastest
• Get the data

By the end of this year the world's seven billionth citizen will be born. The latest United Nations population estimates, out this week, say the global population will reach 10bn in the next 90 years.

According to the UN Population Division's best-case 'medium' estimate - and you can see the original report here - it will take 13 years to add the eighth billion, 18 years to add the ninth billion and 40 years to reach the tenth billion.

The big increases are coming from countries with high fertility rates - the high-fertility countries identified by the UN comprise of 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

Today, 42% of the world's population lives in low-fertility countries, defined in the UN report as

countries where women are not having enough children to ensure that, on average, each woman is replaced by a daughter who survives to the age of procreation

Low-fertility countries include all countries in Europe except Iceland and Ireland. Europe is the one region in the world to see its population decline by 2100 - and you can see below how fertility rates go down across the globe by 2100:

That trend is not repeated in the UK - our population has grown by 23% since 1950, and will grow another 21% by the year 2100 to reach 75.7m.

Population expert Hans Rosling points out the release is a treasure trove of new data, including detailed fertility rates by country, life expectancy and migration figures.

The high-fertility countries (> 3 kids per women) are mainly in Africa and only have 18% of the world population = 1.2 billion people. They are expected to tripple their population to 3,6 billion this century! The Low fertility countries are 40% of world population and will decrease their population and the intermediate are 40% will level of at 2050 … The peak size of the world population, therefore, depends on how fast peace, school, basic health care, poverty alleviation and family planning will become accessible to all in Africa and a few other countries like Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan

And what about China and India? China will hit its peak population in 2027 when it will have over 1.395bn people, before reducing down to 941m by the year 2100. India will hit 1.718bn in 2062, and will come down after that to 1.6bn by 2100.

The full data is below for you to play with - and we've added country codes too. What can you do with it?