Approximate Human Population in Star Trek

[Baffalo]

We know that in Star Trek, they love being able to quote that they have X number of members spread across Y lightyears, and that sounds wonderful from a "We're so awesome" perspective, but what does it mean? A planet could have a few hundred thousand to billions of people. So, if Star Trek had a census taken, where would the population of Humans stand?

To start, let's take a peek at the numbers we do have, courtesy of First Contact:

Riker: ... 600 million dead...

So we know that the Earth lost 600,000,000 people during the war, with 35,000,000 lost in the Eugenics Wars. So, given this trend, and Star Trek's departure from our standard timeline around the 1980's, let's set to work piecing together the approximate population at First Contact in 2063.

In 1990, the world population was 5.263 billion, so the loss of 35 million people would drop it to 5.228 billion. Not a lot, but the population growth rate from 1990 to 2025 (based on current estimates) is computed as
Growth Rate = [P2 - P1]/P1 = [8.004 E+09 - 5.263 E+09]/5.263 E+09 = 0.5208, or 52.08% over a period of 35 years. If we use this then to compute based on our estimates of the casualties of the Eugenics Wars, we get a population of 7.951 billion in 2025.

Now, we're going to have to assume that the population during World War III grew about half as much as it had previously (due to famine, war, men and women off to fight, etc.), so we'll assume 26.04% growth rate per 35 years, or 0.744% per year. To further simplify, we'll assume that the halfway mark of the war (2040) is when the casualties took place, just to keep our numbers simple.

So, from 2025 to 2040 (15 years), that's a growth rate of approximately 11.16%. Plugging in our numbers, that's 8.838 billion in 2040. Subtracting 600 million nets us 8.238 billion, which nets us 9.035 billion people in 2053, the end of the war. Now... we have to assume from this point that with the collapse of infrastructure, the decimation, all that stuff, we're going to see a huge drop off in population growth. Not a reversal by any means, but just a slowdown. So I'm comfortable maintaining our 11% growth rate so far to get us to 2063, when First Contact occurs, for a total of 9.707 billion people.

Before I continue on, I'd like some feedback from people on whether my assumptions are safe, and how we can safely proceed forward.

[Simon_Jester]

A world whose population begins to converge on ten billion will really suffer when infrastructure starts to break down during World War III. Six hundred million dead could mean total losses over a period of years... but it could also mean the death toll in the first week, with half of humanity dying within the next five years from famine, radiation, and nuclear winter.

So I'm not sure your assumptions are safe. I may not be fully understanding them, though; I'm a little fuzzy-headed right now.

More generally, by even Kirk's time we have indications that there are human colony worlds (Kirk's brother lived on one, then it was devastated by alien parasites) with populations of a million (even after alien parasites killed off much of the population). And there are quite a number of settled worlds with populations in the single-digit billions (Nomad massacres one), although they may be Federation member races other than humans.

[Prometheus Unbound]

We know that in Star Trek, they love being able to quote that they have X number of members spread across Y lightyears, and that sounds wonderful from a "We're so awesome" perspective, but what does it mean? A planet could have a few hundred thousand to billions of people. So, if Star Trek had a census taken, where would the population of Humans stand?

To start, let's take a peek at the numbers we do have, courtesy of First Contact:

Riker: ... 600 million dead...

So we know that the Earth lost 600,000,000 people during the war, with 35,000,000 lost in the Eugenics Wars. So, given this trend, and Star Trek's departure from our standard timeline around the 1980's, let's set to work piecing together the approximate population at First Contact in 2063.

In 1990, the world population was 5.263 billion, so the loss of 35 million people would drop it to 5.228 billion. Not a lot, but the population growth rate from 1990 to 2025 (based on current estimates) is computed as
Growth Rate = [P2 - P1]/P1 = [8.004 E+09 - 5.263 E+09]/5.263 E+09 = 0.5208, or 52.08% over a period of 35 years. If we use this then to compute based on our estimates of the casualties of the Eugenics Wars, we get a population of 7.951 billion in 2025.

Now, we're going to have to assume that the population during World War III grew about half as much as it had previously (due to famine, war, men and women off to fight, etc.), so we'll assume 26.04% growth rate per 35 years, or 0.744% per year. To further simplify, we'll assume that the halfway mark of the war (2040) is when the casualties took place, just to keep our numbers simple.

So, from 2025 to 2040 (15 years), that's a growth rate of approximately 11.16%. Plugging in our numbers, that's 8.838 billion in 2040. Subtracting 600 million nets us 8.238 billion, which nets us 9.035 billion people in 2053, the end of the war. Now... we have to assume from this point that with the collapse of infrastructure, the decimation, all that stuff, we're going to see a huge drop off in population growth. Not a reversal by any means, but just a slowdown. So I'm comfortable maintaining our 11% growth rate so far to get us to 2063, when First Contact occurs, for a total of 9.707 billion people.

Before I continue on, I'd like some feedback from people on whether my assumptions are safe, and how we can safely proceed forward.

So your number is 9.7 billion, give or take?


line from the film. Assuming Borg don't age / have kids - "Population 9 billion. All Borg.".

After a couple hundred years.

0.7 for accidents, insurgence and general whatever? Sure.


Your number works out, even in canon

[Baffalo]

The 700 million losses could be from orbital bombardment, suicide, any number of reasons from people who would see what was happening and prefer death to assimilation.

Alright so let's move on. With the return of infrastructure over a period of around 90 years (2063 to 2151) we would see a massive population boom from people who have better access to medicine, food, hygiene, etc. I think it's safe to assume we would see a population explosion on par with the 1950s or so, as a good baseline. I say this because with sudden new opportunities as Humans and Vulcans work to reestablish infrastructure, it will create work, from producing farming equipment, construction equipment, consumer goods, etc. Considering that this will be taking place across the entire planet, it's safe to say that with wealth comes prosperity, especially as some humans begin expanding into space.

• 1941 - +0.88%
• 1942 - +0.60%
• 1943 - +0.24%
• 1944 - -1.01%
• 1945 - -0.30%
• 1946 - +5.72%
• 1947 - +2.42%
• 1948 - +1.85%
• 1949 - +1.76%
• 1950 - +2.15%
• 10-Year Average: +1.43%

So if we use 1.43% as a good average baseline per year, we can safely assume that our population increased from 9.707 billion in 2063 to 21.922 billion in 2151. By about this point, we're going to run into a major problem: overpopulation. While we don't know what the maximum sustainable population is, it's safe to assume that 22 billion would be getting close to maximum, if it hasn't been exceeded already.

From this point onwards, the human population of Earth is going to be, at least according to those projections, maxed out. However, we know that humans are producing starships and expanding, so it's impossible from this point to accurately gauge population growth due to numerous issues (for example, space to expand, food availability, disease, big bad of the week, etc.) but I think it's a fair assumption that we would have a population growth rate continue, though we also run into the issue of the population able to grow older and older, which would actually INCREASE the growth rate since the death rate would drop even if the birth rate remains constant.

So, the net positives are increased availability with the negatives being that when problems do occur, they're usually catastrophic enough to wipe out entire populations a planet at a time. The examples we have are worlds such as Tarsus IV, with a population of 8,000 people. From here, we can start to see how new populations will expand based on the growth rates from Earth. If Earth caps at around 22 billion, then at a roughly 0.6% growth rate (the approximate rate of growth of developed countries), that would yield almost 132 million people to expand out into the stars per year. Each colony thus would grow, cap, and thus expand. Not all will leave, certainly, so as technology such as replicators become more commonplace, the population will continue on.

So, if these people are all expanding out into the stars, and the growth rate maintains itself, then we can reasonably carry this number all the way out to 2375, the approximate date of Star Trek Nemesis. If such is the case, then a low-ball estimate of the population would be somewhere around 49.4 billion people, spread out across the Federation.

[Skylon]

And there are quite a number of settled worlds with populations in the single-digit billions (Nomad massacres one), although they may be Federation member races other than humans.

Not due to any great love of the show, but your comment got me looking at Memory Alpha - apparently ENT established them as aliens.

[Purple]

The 700 million losses could be from orbital bombardment, suicide, any number of reasons from people who would see what was happening and prefer death to assimilation.

Alright so let's move on. With the return of infrastructure over a period of around 90 years (2063 to 2151) we would see a massive population boom from people who have better access to medicine, food, hygiene, etc.

I am not sure this is the case. Modernity shows us that with rising living standards and access to medicine and birth control population growth tends to stagnate and shrink as opposed to growing.

[Lord Revan]

The 700 million losses could be from orbital bombardment, suicide, any number of reasons from people who would see what was happening and prefer death to assimilation.

Alright so let's move on. With the return of infrastructure over a period of around 90 years (2063 to 2151) we would see a massive population boom from people who have better access to medicine, food, hygiene, etc.

I am not sure this is the case. Modernity shows us that with rising living standards and access to medicine and birth control population growth tends to stagnate and shrink as opposed to growing.

while there's a degree of truth in what you say. Major conflict tend to cause a baby boom before the population growth starts to stagnate again and there was a period of low resources after WWIII which could delay the baby boom until after First Contact.

[Patroklos]

Birth rates also decline during the conflict do to spouses being separated or young men (now women) being unavailable to procreate. Any boom will be offset a bit by this.

Also take into account the higher living standards eventually lead to a older population. I am curious what retirement looks like in the ST world. There is a lot of scifi out there that has medicine keeping people basically healthy and productive until just before death. Brave New World comes to mind. If you can basically be physically and mentally fit up until the end would people retire? Physically deterioration is not the only reason people retire of course, but it certainly is one of them. But my point regarding population trends is that people will stay in professions and positions of power longer, not making room for new blood and potentially causing crippling social problems with underutilized young if we assume birth rates remain unchanged as the OP math seems to assume. We are actually seeing mild flavors of this now as people stay in the work force longer.

At the same time, are women and to a lesser extent men kept sexually healthy, active and able to reproduce far longer with ST level technology? In a post scarcity economy which is what we appear to see, at least at the personal level, why would you not have ten kids over 80 years? Finances keep a lot of people from doing that now, how about in circa 2250 San Francisco?

[Baffalo]

Mainly I considered that since numbers beyond the 2060s is going to be sketchy at best, I assumed that as the Federation spread, there would be scenarios where new colonies wouldn't have access to the same level of health care as a central Federation world. They would have the basics, of course, but they wouldn't have teams of specialists like you'd find in, say, a hospital on Earth. Without this specialized medicine, lifespans would be shorter, and thus reproduction more important than on Earth. Also, I like the comment about retirement... what do you do with yourself when you retire and you don't have to worry anymore? Picard was shown tending his family's vineyard, and Data was working as the head of Oxford. When you retire, do you just work doing something until you keel over dead?

I mean, yeah on Earth you'd probably have a very stagnant population, basically maintaining itself at a comfortable level of approximately 22 billion (given that with almost unlimited energy and access to clean, purified water, there's plenty of food and such). Kirk was shown to have a brother... Jake was Sisko's only son... Miles and Keiko had two kids... I think the trend does seem to point towards a roughly stable population in the more stable areas of the Federation. So... who knows? Maybe the population capped much lower than I figured.

[Elheru Aran]

I suspect that in the first couple hundred years of the Federation (roughly from Enterprise on through the end of TOS) were its expansion period throughout much of the Alpha Quadrant. Once they hit the Klingon and Romulan Empires, they started limiting themselves apart from wildcat colonists like those that formed the Maquis. So yeah, that would give the population a reason to stabilize before early TNG. You also have to contend with the notion that there are going to be plenty of non-human Federation colonists out there as well, occupying the same space, which will limit the room of growth.

[FaxModem1]

It seems that colonies mostly seem to be human, and my main theory about the Federation has been that the settled and satisfied stay on the Core or Mid worlds of the Federation, while those with a pioneering spirit leave these planets and expand onto an uninhabited planet. The major example of this is Berengaria VII. In Enterprise, it's being explored and probed by the Vulcans and Humans, with reports of there being dragons.

By TOS, it is a settled minor world, with the dragons being the major attraction of the place.

By DS9, Kai Winn lumps it up with Andoria or Vulcan in its importance.

So, if anything, humans and other races who procreate create enough of a restless population who want to leave the civilized worlds, they go to whatever craphole world, have plagues that the Enterprise constantly has to deliver cures for, until the point that it becomes its own member world of the Federation, as important as Andoria or Vulcan. Thanks to this method, the Federation is constantly expanding like wildfire, explaining the new first contacts it keeps on making.