Population by Continent 2023
There are seven continents in the world:
As of 2017, the global population has reached more than 7.5 billion people, spanning the inhabited continents of Africa, North and South America, Asia, Europe and Australia/Oceania. Encompassing the two most highly populated countries in the world – China and India – Asia is by far the largest of the continents, with a total population of over 4.5 billion people.
Around 40 million people live in Australia/Oceania, the smallest continent. Australia/Oceania is a good example of how the definition of a continent can be complex, as this continent is often, but not always, considered to include the subregions of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and can also be defined as including the entire area between the Americas and Asia. If these regions are excluded and only Australia and New Zealand are counted, the population total drops to under 30 million.
Notably, of all the continents, only Southern and Eastern Europe show negative growth rates in 2017, with Southern Europe at -0.12% and Eastern Europe at -0.15%. Europe as a whole has had a modest population increase of 0.08%, which is the smallest growth rate of the inhabited continents, although Western Europe continues to have a high population density of 178.31 per sq km. In contrast, all of the regions of Africa show significant population growth rates, with increases of 2.5-3% across Central, Eastern, Western and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Continents by Size
The world’s largest continent is Asia, which spans over 17,212,000 square miles (44,579,000 square kilometers). Asia comprises about 30.0% of the Earth’s total land area.
Africa is the world’s second-largest continent with 11,508,000 square miles (30,065,000 square kilometers) of land, making up 20.3% of the Earth’s total land area.
Below are the rest of the continents from next largest to smallest by land area:
- North America – 9,365,000 sq. mi. (24,256,000 sq. km)
- South America – 6,880,000 sq. mi. (17,819,000 sq. km)
- Antarctica – 5,100,000 sq. mi. (13,209,000 sq. km)
- Europe – 3,837,000 sq. mi (9,938,000 sq. km)
- Australia/Oceania – 2,968,000 sq. mi. (7,687,000 sq. km)
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Population by Continent 2023