Population
the number of people. Civilized countries take a census of the population about once in ten years. According to the latest enumerations the number of people living within reach of a census at the beginning of the twentieth century was about 900,000,000. The population of the world appears to have doubled during the nineteenth century. Careful estimates place the population of the world at about 1,600,000,000, distributed as follows:
| Europe | 400,000,000 |
| Asia | 868,000,000 |
| Africa | 178,000,000 |
| America | 148,000,000 |
| Oceania | 6,000,000 |
| Total | 1,600,000,000 |
An estimate from a different source, seemingly quite as trustworthy, distributes mankind according to races as follows:
| Caucasians (or white men) | 770,000,000 |
| Mongols (or yellow men) | 540,000,000 |
| Ethiopians (or black men) | 175,000,000 |
| Americans (or red men), that is to say, Indians | 22,000,000 |
| Total | 1,507,000,000 |
Still another competent authority offers the following figures based on creeds:
| Christianity | 477,000,000 |
| Confucianism | 256,000,000 |
| Hindooism | 190,000,000 |
| Mohammedanism | 176,000,000 |
| Buddhism | 148,000,000 |
| Polytheism | 118,000,000 |
| Taoism | 43,000,000 |
| Shintoism | 14,000,000 |
| Judaism | 7,000,000 |
| Total | 1,429,000,000 |
A late estimate places the total at 1,611,718,000. When we consider the extent to which these figures are based on estimates, the results seem to confirm each other. The average is about thirty-one inhabitants per square mile, cities and all, of the earth's surface.
See Cities