The United Nations Has Set Aside a Day to Honor Statistics

The United Nations may be the world’s best hope for unity, but it’s also a vast research organization that produces mountains of statistics.

So, perhaps it’s not surprising that The United Nations General Assembly has designated a special day – October 20, 2015 – just to honor statistics.

This October 20 marks the second-ever World Statistics Day. Statistical organizations throughout the world are revving up to celebrate this year’s theme of “Better Data. Better Lives.”

To honor this special day, the statisticians at the U.S. Census Bureau have put together the following facts:

India is expected to be most populous country in 2050 with 1.7 billion people, according to U.S. Census Bureau population projections. China is projected to be second with 1.3 billion people.

The United States has a mere 321.9 million human inhabitants. The new “big” generation are millennials. There were 83.1 million of them born between 1982 and 2000.

This group exceeds the baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, by 7.7 million.

The U.S. population, while no rival to India’s or China’s, has grown dramatically over time: It reached 300 million in 2006, 200 million in 1967 and 100 million in 1915.

When the U.S. achieved independence in 1776, the country had a population of just 2.5 million.

So, there you have it: fun facts for World Statistics Day!