“World Population Day is celebrated annually on 11 July to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.” (SDG Knowledge Hub). The 2023 theme is: Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities (United Nations). Please click here to download the state of world population 2023 report.

“In November 2022, the world population eclipsed 8 billion people. For many of us, it represented a milestone that the human family should celebrate — a sign that people are living longer, healthier lives and enjoying more rights and greater choices than ever before. The relationship between reproductive autonomy and healthier lives is an uncontested truth: as women are empowered to make choices about their bodies and lives, they and their families thrive — and their societies thrive as well” (https://www.unfpa.org/swp2023).

Since we love maps, we are celebrating World Population Day geographically, again. The first two maps depict population density and total population per country, followed by a map showing the 2023 Global Gender Gap Index score per country. “The Global Gender Gap Index annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment). It is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous countries’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time since its inception in 2006” (World Economic Forum). Click here to view the full 2023 report.

Map 1 – Population density per country. Macau SAR, China is the largest country in the world based on population density, followed by Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong. South Africa has around 50 people per square kilometer (https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard).

Map 2 – Total population per country. India and China have the highest population count (over 1.4 billion people respectively), followed by the United States, Indonesia and Pakistan (https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard). The 2022 mid-year population estimate for South Africa is 60.6 million (Statistics South Africa).

Map 3 - Global Gender Gap score per country. “The Global Gender Gap Index measures scores on a 0 to 100 scale and scores can be interpreted as the distance covered towards parity (i.e. the percentage of the gender gap that has been closed)” Global Gender Gap Report. The top nine countries include Iceland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Nicaragua, Namibia and Lithuania). These countries closed more than 80% of their gender gap. South Africa is ranked 20^th with a Global Gender Gap score of 79%.