Population, in human biology, the whole number of inhabitants

occupying an area (such as a country or the world) and continually

being modified by increases (births and immigrations) and losses
(deaths and emigrations). As with any biological population, the size of
a human population is limited by the supply of food, the effect of
diseases, and other environmental factors. Human populations are
further affected by social customs governing reproduction and by the
technological developments, especially in medicine and public health,
that have reduced mortality and extended the life span.

Few aspects of human societies are as fundamental as the size, composition,

and rate of change of their populations. Such factors affect economic
prosperity, health, education, family structure, crime patterns, language,
culture—indeed, virtually every aspect of human society is touched upon by
population trends.

As the world’s population rises and demands more access to

resources, the issues associated with the commons become more
severe.
The study of human populations is called demography—a discipline with
intellectual origins stretching back to the 18th century, when it was first
recognized that human mortality could be examined as a phenomenon with
statistical regularities. Demography casts a multidisciplinary net, drawing
insights from economics, sociology, statistics, medicine, biology,
anthropology, and history. Its chronological sweep is lengthy: limited
demographic evidence for many centuries into the past, and reliable data for
several hundred years are available for many regions. The present
understanding of demography makes it possible to project (with caution)
population changes several decades into the future.

Basic components of population change

At its most basic level, the components of population change are few indeed.
A closed population (that is, one in which immigration and emigration do not
occur) can change according to the following simple equation: the population
(closed) at the end of an interval equals the population at the beginning of the
interval, plus births during the interval, minus deaths during the interval. In
other words, only addition by births and reduction by deaths can change a
closed population.
Populations of nations, regions, continents, islands, or cities, however, are
rarely closed in the same way. If the assumption of a closed population is
relaxed, in- and out-migration can increase and decrease population size in
the same way as do births and deaths; thus, the population (open) at the end
of an interval equals the population at the beginning of the interval, plus births
during the interval, minus deaths, plus in-migrants, minus out-migrants. Hence
the study of demographic change requires knowledge of fertility (births),
mortality (deaths), and migration. These, in turn, affect not only population
size and growth rates but also the composition of the population in terms of
such attributes as sex, age, ethnic or racial composition, and geographic
distribution.

Overpopulation occurs when the number of individuals exceeds the

number that the environment can sustain. Possible consequences are
environmental deterioration, impaired quality of life, and a population
crash.