Take a look at this BBC News report on UN estimates for the growth in world population. It’s headlined “UN warns of population surge”.
But that’s not what the UN report says, as USA Today makes clear using the headline “World population to level off”.
U.N. estimates for 2050 are down from 9.4 billion to 8.9 billion. The population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion by 2300.And another thing, the BBC ends its report by claiming, “India, China and the United States will continue to be the most heavily populated countries of the world.”
Someone really should explain to the BBC that there's a difference between population and population density.
The United States is one of the most highly populated countries in the world but it's certainly not "heavily populated". The US has a population density of less than 30 people per square kilometre compared to 377 per square kilometre in England. India has a population density of 318 people per square kilometre.
That makes England one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, far more heavily populated than India and with more than twelve times the population density of the US.
Not that I’d expect anyone at the BBC to know that.
