The 8 billion population milestone represents 1 billion people added to the planet in the last 11 years.
image via pixabayThe world's population has today reached 8 billion.
It means the population of the planet is now three times the size it was in 1950.
This is all based on numbers from the United Nations which says that although there are more people than ever before because we're living longer, fewer births contribute to the slowest growth rate in decades.
It could take 15 years to reach nine billion and the UN doesn't expect to reach 10 billion until 2080.
However questions have been raised about whether we can cope with such a surge.
Due to the surge, resource pressure will be especially daunting in African nations, where populations are expected to boom, experts say.
Padraig Carmody, Professor of Geography at Trinity College Dublin, thinks we can cope if resources are shared evenly:
"If you look at some recent statistics, there is actually more obese people in the world than there is malnourished people, so it's a question of distribution."
The increase in population may also have an effect on climate change, but according to John Wilmoth, director of the UN's population division, humanity's impact on the natural world "has more to do with how we behave than how many we are."
