There are nearly 8 billion people living on our planet. There are 195 countries and about 6,500 languages and dialects.
With that kind of diversity, it only stands to reason that there are a ton of interesting and little-known facts about our world. There is an endless variety of fun and unique people, places, and things.
I’d love to be able to share all of them, but I doubt anyone knows all of them. Instead, I’ll share 50 facts that you might not have known about already.
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Pixabay
1. No Coke
There are only two places in the world Where you cannot buy Coca Cola. They are North Korea and Cuba. So I guess there’s no Pepsi challenges there.
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Pixabay
2. Where in the world
The world’s population is between 7 and 8 billion people. You could take all of those people and fit them inside of Los Angeles, but to do that every single person would have to stand shoulder to shoulder.
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Pixabay
3. Not as rare as you might think
Twins are becoming more and more common. From 1915 to 1980, about 2% of all babies born were a twin. Since then, that rate has been increasing, and hit three point 3.3% in 2010.
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Pixabay
4. Too hot for me
The Dragons Breath chili pepper is the hottest pepper in the world and eating it could kill you. Apparently you could end up in a type of anaphylactic shock as it burned your airways and closed them up.
Source:
Twitter
5. The number one destination
The most visited country in the world is France. In 2017 France had 86.9 million people visit while the United States only had 76.9. Spain was the second most popular destination with a total of 81.8 million visitors.
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Pixabay
6. The world’s most densely populated island
Is Santa Cruz del Islote, off the coast of Colombia. It’s an artificial island and only the size of two soccer fields—about 2 acres.
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Flickr
7. The Canary Islands
I bet you thought they were named for birds, right? Nope. The name comes from the Spanish Islas Canarias, which comes from the Latin phrase Canariae Insulae for “island of dogs.”
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Pixabay
8. Indonesia is home to some of the worlds shortest people
Including both sexes, the average adult is around 5 feet, 1.8 inches. This just a little shorter than people from Bolivia, who average 5 feet, 2.4 inches. The Netherlands have the tallest average at 6 feet.
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Pixabay
9. The Paris Agreement on climate change
When this was signed on Earth Day in 2016 at the UN, it was the largest number of countries ever to sign something on the same it. 174 world leaders signed the Agreement.
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Pixabay
10. Go to your room and be quiet
The world’s quietest room can be found at the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington. The room is a lab that measures a background noise of -20.35 dBA,. This is 20 decibels below the threshold of human hearing.
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Wikipedia
11. Metric or Imperial?
Most of the world uses the metric system. There are only 3 countries left that use Imperial. Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.
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Pixabay
12. The town with the longest name
The longest place name in the world belongs to a town in New Zealand. It is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. I’ll save you from counting. There are 85 letters there.
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Flickr
13. Baby boom
There are four babies born every second in the world. And that works out to 250 births per minute, 15,000 each hour, and 360,000 each and every day. For a total of 131.4 million babies born on earth every year.
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Pixabay
14. Damn, it’s cold
Before you complain about how cold it is where you live, here is the coldest temperature ever recorded on the earth. It was -144 degrees Fahrenheit recorded in Antarctica just a few years ago.
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Pixabay
15. And the earth’s ozone layer will recover
Here’s some good news. The ozone layer is expected to make a full recovery In 50 years, according to a report made by the United Nations in 2018.
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Pixabay
16. Thinking of moving to Japan?
Perhaps you want to consider this first. Japan is the most earthquake prone country in the world. Earthquakes there range from simple minor tremors to significant quakes that cause massive destruction.
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Pixabay
17. That’s a lot of bacteria
The earth is home to around 4 quadrillion quadrillion bacteria. And in case you’re wondering there are 15 zeros in a quadrillion. It’s a very good thing that not all bacteria is bad.
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Pixabay
18. We are the minority
According to statistics all of us living on the earth right now only make up about 7% of all of the people who have lived and died on planet earth. According to the population reference Bureau 108 billion people have been born and died.
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Pixabay
19. What’s the most popular baby name?
No, it’s not John or Mary. The most popular name in the world is thought to be Muhammad. The current estimate puts the total of men and boys with this name at 150 million worldwide.
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Pixabay
20. The color purple
No, we’re not talking about the movie. Just an interesting fact that there are only two National flags in the entire world that have purple in them. These are the flags of Nicaragua and Dominica.
Source:
NeedPix
21. Urban vs Rural
90% of the worlds rural population live in Asia and Africa. According to Reuters India has 893 million people that live outside of the city.
Source:
PikList
22. Don’t throw out old coins
The most expensive coin to be ever sold in the world was sold for more than $7 million. It was the 1933 Double Eagle coin that was worth $20 US and made of gold, but it never went into circulation.
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Pixabay
23. The world’s largest man-made oyster reef
Who would have ever guessed it, but this is located in Maryland. Because of overfishing and disease, the oyster population began to suffer in the Chesapeake Bay. However, a collaboration saw the creation of this reef.
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Wikipedia
24. And the record belongs to …
the most countries to ever partake in a Winter Olympics was in 2018 when 90 two countries competed. The previous record was in 2014 when 88 countries participated.
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Pixabay
25. Who’s the youngest
There are many countries in the world seeped in millennia of history. However the youngest country in the world is South Sudan which gained its independence from Sudan in 2011.
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Pixabay
26. Millennials
According to the United Nations more than 52% of the current world population is under 30 years of age. Nearly 90% of them live in emerging and developing countries, such as the Middle East and Africa.
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Flickr
27. Seniors
While the majority of the world’s population is under 30, people over 60 years of age make up 12.3% of the population. However, by the year 2050, that number is expected to jump up to 22%.
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Pixabay
28. What time is it where you live?
The world is home to more than 24 time zones. Time zones aren’t neatly laid out one hour apart. Many of them are only 30 or 45 minutes apart, so it makes it difficult to determine exactly how many time zones there are.
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Pixabay
29. Of the most popular sport in the world
The FIFA World Cup in 2010 and 2014 was watched by nearly half of the world’s population. This makes soccer—or football–the most popular sport in the world.
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Pixabay
30. Sweden wins
They win at having the greatest number of islands that is. The country of Sweden has 221,800 islands however only about 1000 of them are inhabited.
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Pixabay
31. Ah, the nobility
There are 43 countries in the world that still have a Royal family. To break that down a little further there are actually 28 Royal families ruling over a total of 43 countries.
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Pixabay
32. Castroville, California
I’ve never heard of the place, but apparently it’s famous. It is known as the Artichoke Capital of the World. It boasts being the grower of 99.9% of all commercial artichokes grown worldwide.
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Pixabay
33. Let’s go see the pandas
If your local zoo has panda bears, you can thank China. That’s because all panda bears in zoos worldwide are on loan from China, technically making them the property of the government of China.
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Pixabay
34. This can’t be right
According to a study done for National Geographic in 2011, the world’s most typical person isn’t what you would seem. This person is right-handed, they make less than $12,000 a year, they have a cell phone, but they don’t have a bank account.
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Pixabay
35. A walk in the forest
Canada has 396.9 million hectares of forest land. This is the equivalent of 9% of all forests worldwide.
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Pixabay
36. The most common bird on earth
No, it’s not sparrows or pigeons. It’s the red-billed quelea, And they are indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa. There are so many of them they are actually considered to be pests.
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Wikipedia
37. But how?
Worldometers.info tracks the world’s population in real time. As babies are born and people die the world population changes. But this has to be as records are made available not at the actual moment someone is born or dies.
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Pixabay
38. A common language
The most commonly spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese with 918 million speakers. Spanish is behind that with 460 million, and then English with 379 million.
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Pixabay
39. Who’s your great, great… granddaddy?
Apparently one in every 200 men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. He lived between 1162 and 1227 and fathered countless children. Scientists believe that about 16 million people are his direct descendants according to a 2003 historical genetics paper.
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Pixabay
40. The bike lane debate
Copenhagen is the world’s most bike friendly city. It’s now the role model for cities who are trying to adapt and rework their infrastructure in order to accommodate cyclists.
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Pixabay
41. How many languages do you know?
If one of them is sign language, you might be interested in knowing that 41 countries have recognized sign as an official language. There are also about 300 different sign languages including American sign and International sign.
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Flickr
42. Adult literacy is improving
The global literacy rate for adults is around 86%. According to UNESCO there is also an improvement in the literacy rates among children around the world. 50 years ago, approximately 25% of youth in the world lacked basic literacy skills, in comparison to 10% in 2016.
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Pixabay
43. Do you Facebook?
It’s not that popular with young people, but Facebook has more users than the population of the United States, China, and Brazil combined. That’s the equivalent of more than two billion active users.
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Pixabay
44. Starts with The
There are only two countries in the world that officially begin with the word “The.” It might be common to say the United States or the Maldives, but only The Bahamas and The Gambia formally include the word the.
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Pixabay
45. Ants vs Humans
There are nearly 8 billion people alive on earth right now. There are 10 quadrillion individual ants crawling the planet right now. Combined, all the ants weigh as much as humans. But since humans are getting fatter, we are tipping that scale.
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Pixabay
46. Oceans alive
They really are. Our oceans contain about 200,000 different viruses. And while that sounds scary, it actually helps microbiologists understand the ocean better.
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Pixabay
47. New Zealanders love pets
And to prove it, they have more pets per household than any other country. 68% of them have a pet compared to the US, which only has a pet in about 50% of households.
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Pixabay
48. And the world’s largest city is…
Tokyo. The city is home to 37 million inhabitants. The next largest cities are Delhi, India, at 29 million, and Shanghai, China at 26 million people.
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Pixabay
49. Crime fighters
Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) began in 1914. Legal professionals from 24 countries around the world—the International Criminal Police Congress—came together to discuss how to catch fugitives.
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Wikipedia
50. Rest in Peace
Nearly 2 people die every second—the same amount of time four new babies are born. 55.3 million people die each year worldwide.
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Pixabay
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