Population
Libya has a small population residing in a large land area. Population density is about 50 persons per km² (130/sq. mi.) in the two northern regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but falls to less than one person per km² (2.6/sq. mi.) elsewhere. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast. About 88% of the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the four largest cities, Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata and Bayda. Thirty percent of the population is estimated to be under the age of 15, but this proportion has decreased considerably during the past decades.
| Total population (x 1000) | Population aged 0–14 (%) | Population aged 15–64 (%) | Population aged 65+ (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 6 029 | 41.9 | 53.4 | 4.7 |
| 1955 | 6 126 | 43.0 | 52.7 | 4.3 |
| 1960 | 6 349 | 43.3 | 52.7 | 4.0 |
| 1965 | 6 623 | 43.4 | 53.0 | 3.6 |
| 1970 | 6 994 | 45.2 | 52.1 | 2.7 |
| 1975 | 7 066 | 46.5 | 51.3 | 2.2 |
| 1980 | 7 193 | 47.0 | 50.7 | 2.2 |
| 1985 | 7 750 | 47.3 | 50.5 | 2.3 |
| 1990 | 7 834 | 43.5 | 53.9 | 2.6 |
| 1995 | 7 975 | 38.3 | 58.8 | 2.9 |
| 2000 | 8 231 | 32.4 | 64.2 | 3.4 |
| 2005 | 8 970 | 30.6 | 65.6 | 3.8 |
| 2010 | 9 655 | 30.4 | 65.3 | 4.3 |
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Libya
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“The population question is the real riddle of the sphinx, to which no political Oedipus has as yet found the answer. In view of the ravages of the terrible monster over-multiplication, all other riddle sink into insignificance.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)