World Population Growth

The population of the world changed dramatically over the past 2000 years. In the time of the

Romans there were very few people living on the planet. The places that had the most people

were ……………………….. and ……………………… but there were also small amounts of people in

Europe. The rest of the world at this time had so few people living there that the map appears

……………………. The population changed relatively little over the next ……………………. years.

However, the population did begin to grow in western Africa, what is now ……………………, and it

continued to grow in China and India. The population of Europe began to become more

noticeable around 1200, in the ………………, but a lot of this growth was wiped out in the middle

of the 14th century as a terrible ……………….. killed millions of people. After this the population

of Europe recovered and continued to grow as did the population in Southern Asia. The rest of

the world including North America, South America, Australia, Africa and most of Asia were

………………….. populated in 1800 and had not had any significant population growth. It was

around 1800 that the ……………………….. ……………………. happened and at this point the population

began to grow more quickly in many parts of the world. The population on both the east and

west coasts of …………….. …………………. began to grow quickly and the population in Europe grew

very rapidly. The biggest changes to the world’s population have happened since 1950 through,

as much of North America, South America, …………….. and central Asia have become

…………………….. populated by 2003. The growth of the world’s population is also projected up to

2020 where it appears that nearly all of the Earth’s land area will be covered in people with the

exception of places like ……………………….., the ………………………… Desert, the Amazon

Nigeria Africa Arctic China Industrial revolution West
……………………….. and the extremely cold northern latitudes such as the ………………….. These
Rainforest India Black Sahara 1000 Sparsely
places are too hostile to support
Plague Northlarge numbers of human
America being
Increasingly Australia
 World Population Growth

Model answer

The population of the United Kingdom has grown exponentially from 1 million in 43 AD to 63

million in 2009. The population grew slowly between 43 Ad and 1300, taking 1,257 years to

treble. The population grew quicker after 1300 only taking 235 years to double between 1615

and 1812. After 1812, there has been a population explosion with the population taking 130

years to double between 1871 and 2009.

General comment Specific Examples