Exploring UN Population Data

Description

On November 15, 2022, the world population topped 8 billion people!

In this webcast, discover techniques for exploring data using the United Nations World Population Prospects database. Learn to extract and filter data. Use the data to create line graphs and population pyramids.

Download the example file from DataGraph: File > On-line Examples, “World Population Prospects Database”.

Ex1: Line Plots

The first data set we worked with contained total population estimates from 1950-2100 for a variety of different scenarios, called variants in the data. The data were presented in various ways by country, region, and world.

The Plot command was used to create line plots of the data. Here is an initial graph, containing all the downloaded data, including all countries and regions.

A mask was used to filter the projections data for the world population only.

Next we filtered the graph to show specific projections, add data labels, and add axis labels. Dashed lines are also added to highlight the current year and population.

Ex2: Population Pyramid

The next graphic created was a population pyramid using the Bar command. Here the population for males is on the left and females is on the right. In the demo, data were graphed for 5 year increments and for each age as shown below.

Webcast Recording

Watch the full video below or skip to any part using the following links.

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:10 Overview of Graphs
• 2:40 Import & Explore
• 8:05 Line Plots
• 12:03 Filter Line Plots
• 24:05 Population Pyramid
• 34:07 Text Menus
• 42:45 Q&A: World Maps

Data Source

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2022). World Population Prospects 2022, Online Edition. https://population.un.org/wpp/