Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total human population has continued to grow; however, current projections suggest that this long-term trend of steady population growth may be coming to an end.
An abandoned house in Yubari district, Hokkaido: an area which has suffered sharp population decline
Ukrainian refugees entering Romania, 5 March 2022
Thousands of abandoned villages are scattered across Russia.
Russian soldier killed in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has further exacerbated Russia's demographic crisis.
In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 222 years more to reach 8 billion.
A world population clock in August 2022 at Eureka! in Halifax, West Yorkshire