Have we underestimated the total number of people on Earth?

A new way of estimating rural populations has found that we may be undercounting people who live in these areas, potentially inflating the global population beyond the official count of 8.2 billion – but not everyone agrees Population estimates in rural areas of China may be incorrect Shutterstock/aphotostory Our estimates of rural populations have systematically underestimated the actual number of people living in these regions by at least half, researchers have claimed – with potentially huge impacts on global population levels and planning for public services. However, the findings are disputed by demographers, who say any such underestimates are unlikely to alter national or global head counts. Josias Láng-Ritter and his colleagues at Aalto University, Finland, were working to understand the extent to which dam construction projects caused people to be resettled, but while estimating populations, they kept getting vastly different numbers to official statistics. Advertisement ... Read full article.