The Population Reference Bureau has published its 2009 World Population Data Sheet .  Some of the highlights include

                Africa's population has just passed 1 billion and will double by 2050. 

                           Nigeria, Niger and Uganda have some of the highest growth rates in the world

                Nearly have the world's population lives on less than US $2per day.

                                    The largest number of the desperately poor live in Asia but  Africa has the highest percentage of individuals                                 living on US $2 per day.

                HIV prevalence now appears to be on the decline in Africa, but rates are still far higher than in other world regions.                                          26 percent of the population of Swaziland ages 15 to 49 is HIV positive. This is the highest rate in the world.

                The birth rate among U.S. teenagers is twice as high as the average for all developed countries. The U.S. rate is 42 births                        per 1,000 teenage girls (ages 15-19); the rate for all developed countries is 21 per 1,000.

           The World Population Data Sheet is one of the most important information tools one can have.  I recommend the old fashioned hard copy rather than using it on the internet. It is actually much faster to grab the data sheet and look at a country and to see the country in the context of its region and the world.  While the sheet can be downloaded from PRB  the printed copy is really the most useful.  It provides an incredible amount of data on population fertility, mortality  and environment for nations and regions of the world.  This year they have added metric tons of c02 emissions per capita.  The United States emits 19. metric tons per capita while Qatar emits 48.3 per capita.  Our impact, of course is bigger.  

This sheet enables one to quickly find the size of country, its project population growth to 2050, the infant mortality rate, HIV rate, percent of population with HIV/AIDS and the percent of women using contraception. 

 The beauty of the Population Data Sheet is the layout by region and country so that you can compare countries within a region and then to the world.  I urge everyone interested in population growth to order one from PRB.... or at least download it via the internet.