World population 2025: Eastern Europe emptied, South Asia overcrowded
Population density will change extremely differently from region to region over the next twenty years: While the number of inhabitants is falling in large parts of Eastern Europe, in Russia, Japan, South Korea and most Western European countries, South and Southeast Asia, West and and East Africa as well as large regions of Latin America.
But the world map of the population distribution in 2025 created by researchers led by Stuart Gaffin from Columbia University also shows some surprises: The number of inhabitants of smaller regions in the Philippines, Nepal, Turkey, Cambodia, Myanmar and Indonesia go back. Even parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South America are becoming a little emptier - mostly parts of the country where war is raging, desertification is progressing or the HIV rate is very high.
In Western Europe, depopulation due to emigration and the negative ratio between births and deaths in many places is primarily affecting Italy, Spain and Portugal, while Germany and Austria are still getting off lightly. On the other hand, there is growth above all in parts of France, in the Benelux countries and Great Britain. In summary, the scientists predict the largest increase in population for already densely populated coastal regions: The increase here could be up to 35 percent compared to 1995.
To create the map, the researchers laid a grid of nine million cells over the globe and extrapolated data on population changes from 1990 to 1995 per cell into the future.
