In this short video Professor Hans Rosling shows how the size of the world population has changed over time. From the beginning of agriculture to the industrial revolution the population growth was very slow. Then the population started to grow rapidly because fewer died young. Today, most women have fewer children and therefore the rapid growth will soon be slowing down. World population will most likely stabilize around 11 billion towards the end of the century.
Data Sources:
Biraben 1980; McEvedy & Jones 1978; UN World Pop. Prosp. 2012; combined by Gapminder