The World at 7 Billion

Gurleen Dulay and Harshdeep Parmar

1. This map shows Eastern Europe having a negative growth rate, indicating a declining population.

2. List of Countries in Eastern Europe with a Negative Growth Rate:
- Russia (-0.2%) -Moldova (-0.1%) - Hungary (-0.4%)
- Belarus (-0.3%) - Romania (-0.2%)
- Ukraine (-0.4%) - Bulgaria (-0.5%) 3. Eastern Europe is a region that encompasses many different cultures, ethnicities, languages, and histories within its twenty-seven countries. Grouping all of these countries under a single continent can sometimes cause issues. Many people, including citizens living there label parts of the region according to specific criteria or common characteristics. This separation has caused heated debates to erupt when some have felt that a certain country has been mis-categorized. However, it's important to note that the countries broadly classified as being a part of Eastern Europe have some things in common. Eastern Europe is relatively developed compared to the rest of the world. But compared to its counterpart, Western Europe, it is underdeveloped making Eastern Europe to be considered as a developing region. These countries in Eastern Europe are also all known to be behind the Iron Curtain before its fall. The Iron Curtain was a barrier brought up by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. This political boundary of the last century helps us define a region whose development, especially until the 1990s, has been very different from that of Western Europe.
4. Looking at the history and demographic status of Eastern Europe, the population decrease can be explained due to several health factors and low replacement, as well as emigration of ethnic Russians to Russia. Exceptions to this are in those ex-Soviet states that have a Muslim majority (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan), where high birth rates are traditional. Much of Eastern Europe has lost population due to migration to Western Europe. In Eastern Europe and Russia, the fertility rate fell sharply after the end of the Soviet Union, and death rates generally rose. Together these nations occupy over 21,000,000 square kilometres and are home to over 400 million people (less than six percent of the world population), but if current trends continue, more of the developed world and some of the developing world could join this trend.

5. The world map showcases regions from Africa having the highest growth rates from any other continent in the world, particularly Eastern Africa. Eastern Africa is known for having an average growth rate increase of 2.7%. From all countries present in this region, Uganda is known to be the country with the highest growth rate increase in the world with a percentage of 3.4%. Zambia is also known for having a high population growth increase of 3.1%, coming second to Uganda. Majority of the other countries present in Eastern Europe are all known for having a very high population growth rate increase. Other than Eastern Africa, Middle and Western Africa also have very high population growth rates, making this continent really stand out.

6. In demographics, the rate of natural increase (NIR) is the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate of a population which give the annual rate of population growth without considering migration and is often measured in a percentage. When looking at countries, it gives an idea of what position in the Demographic Transition Model, but to find out how much a country is growing, the population growth rate should be observed. Usually developing countries have a positive or high natural increase rate. Developed countries have a negative/neutral or low natural increase rate, however many developed countries have their population increasing due to immigration despite their negative RNI.

7. From all four