What is the world population right now?

World population is anchored to a published estimate and advanced by births minus deaths — about 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths per second, a net gain of roughly 2.2 people every second.

Population estimates carry real uncertainty even at the national level, and several large countries have not run a recent census. The global figure is confident to within tens of millions, not to the last digit.

Full derivation on the methodology page. Where we model a figure rather than cite a published one, we say so — please do not present model output as a measured statistic.