How big is it, really?

World population · People

• In other words

  Everyone alive

  This is the number of people on Earth right now — about 8.2 billion of us. Schaal uses this as the reference for every per-person line.

  Why this number

• Crowd

  164,000 packed stadiums

  A packed stadium is 50,000. Greater Tokyo is about 37 million; this is 222× that city.

  Why this number

• Time to count

  260 years

  One per second, without pausing, is 8.2 billion seconds — 260 years.

  Why this number

• Head to toe

  13.9 million km

  Stacked at 1.7 m each, that line is 13.9 million km.

  Why this number