Global Village

I’ve always liked a little report I see from time to time that takes the world’s population and proportions it to 100 people, calls it the “Global Village of 100 people”, and then presents statements like this:

The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific

51 would be male, 49 would be female

82 would be non-white; 18 white

67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian

80 would live in substandard housing

67 would be unable to read

50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation

33 would be without access to a safe water supply

39 would lack access to improved sanitation

24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)

7 people would have access to the Internet

1 would have a college education

1 would have HIV2 would be near birth; 1 near death

5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens

33 would be receiving --and attempting to live on-- only 3% of the income of “the village”

After doing a little Google research, I started to wonder how much “urban legend” had crept into the 100 people Global Village? After looking at this excel spreadsheet of information sources, I started to see how easily someone can create a 100 people global village statistic. But, I still like the memetic perspective it provides.