World population to hit 7 bn in 2011

HANOVER - The world’s population will have grown to about 6.9 billion at the new year and hit seven billion by the middle of 2011, a German aid group that promotes birth control said in Hanover Tuesday.

The German Foundation for World Population, or DSW, runs a “population meter” on its website that calculates the current world population from various annual data sources.

The calculator is to read 6,934,196,000 at midnight Friday, up 80 million from one year ago. The numbers assume that 2.6 new people join the world population every second.

DSW, which supplies free contraception, did not forecast any exact date for the seven billion mark to be reached.