[Jeeves]

Trying to find information about the world population, Considering the timeline and various population dips, I'm estimating somewhere around 9-10 billion? Especially with orks having a higher birth rate, higher average number of offspring, and so on. Can anyone help me find more info on this?

[Medicineman]

I'm estimating somewhere around 9-10 billion?

much less.
there has been 2 huge Waves of Vitas that decimated abaout 1/3 of the World Wide Population ( more than 2.5 Billion died in both waves in the 2020's )
there has been some spekulation,statistics, etc ( yes, some players In the US Forums took the time to calculate everything. Kudos to them) that by 2070 The Population is back to 6-6.5 Billions .
 @ Orks higher Birthrate
This stopped mystiriously in Megacitys like Seattle in the 2070s
(and it has absolutely nothing to do with the free Healthcare that is given to the Orks since Kenneth Brackhaven is Mayor of Seattle)
Orks in the open Country have no such Problems (and sooner or later they will re-populate spots like Madagascar or 1/2 of Afrika which was  devoid of Humans )
there is some oficial Statistics in the BBB but thats only the Percentage of Humans a Metahumans ,not the actual population.
Hey, go and check the 6th World Almanach. Maybe there's some Numbers ?

With a Dance on a barren Island
Medicineman
 

[Patrick Goodman]

I ran the numbers once, and talked with Jason while determining some stuff for the Infected. Worldwide population is between 7.5 and 8 billion in 2075, taking the mass die-offs into account and using some basic population growth figs from the WHO and a couple of other sources.

[Darzil]

The challenge is probably working out how the population reductions would have affected birthrates. Currently in the real world birthrates are falling as child survival rates rise, and due to rates falling below 2 per family in many countries, it is believed that we have currently hit "peak child". If so, increasing lifespans mean we expect to peak at 9-11 billion world population, towards the end of the century.

However, Shadowrun makes things interesting, as you have both the die-offs (which would probably increase birthrates if they affect a % of population, such increases can last a generation, but probably don't if they wiped out populations in an area), and changing lifespans.

[Fizzygoo]

A back of the napkin calculation would be:
2010: VITAS I: Kills 25% of population (Sixth World Almanac, pg 19, et. al)
2022: VITAS II: Kills 10% of population  (Sixth World Almanac, pg 35, et. al)

Metas' birthrates are a bit tricky. Orks bearing 4 children on average with "six or eight...not uncommon" (Corebook 1st ed., pg 28) is rough to calculate due to all the cultural, economic, and environmental factors affecting them. Additionally their nearly half typical lifespan as that of H. sapiens sapiens is also an issue. So I think a safe, very rough, calculation for orks is that they produce young x4 faster than normal, but die in half the time, so an overall x2 modifier to ork population (again, safe and rough calculation that leans towards deleterious cultural, economic, and environmental factors).

Also, erring on the safe side, assume that orks, as a population, don't hit their stride until some time after 2031...which would be about the date when the first naturally born orks would hit puberty...so, safe side, 2035 is when ork populations begin breeding like, well, orks.

But then, Run Faster lists the word wide ork population to be 22% (pg 45) as of 2076. What this means is that, in 2021 where one in ten goblinized (starting population of less than 10% when subtracting trolls) the population increased to 22% over 55 years. Yet elves and dwarves combined is 29% and they have a few years on orks. And even if we add in trolls to the orks' population, the orks and trolls are still trailing elves and dwarves by 2% by 2076. So it's pretty safe to say that despite the high birth numbers of orks, outside factors (and their short lifespans) are still severely limiting their full population growth potential by the current date.

So now, crunch the numbers by just graph-matching (I'm randomly grabbing this site's graph http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ ) to current world population data and see where we get:

In 2010, real world population was 6.92 billion which drops to 5.19 billion after VITAS I.
5.19 billion was the real world population in about 1989.
Goblinization hits in 2021, 11 years after VITAS I, equivalent of year 2000 (11 years after 1989), where the population was 6.13 billion.
613 million of which became orks and trolls (I can't find anywhere where it lists how many were orks and how many were trolls).
VITAS II is 12 years after 2010, so 1989+12 = 2001.
In 2001, real world population was 6.2 billion which drops to 5.58 billion after VITAS II.
5.58 billion was the real world population in about 1993.
So 2022 (5.58 billion) to 2076 is 54 years.
1993 (5.58 billion) + 54 years is 2047.
2047 is projected to have a population of 9.41 billion

Now all that is based on 1990 to 2010 agritech and other technologies so all the NutraSoy products, Arcology-living, and what not might boost those numbers up in the later years.

And on the other hand, all the pollution and toxic disasters of the early SR 2010s might have had long lasting population growth inhibitors, so we could bring those numbers back down from the boon of tech. 

You can also dig in and do smaller modifications...like estimating the number of the population killed in the Ghost Dance War and the Eurowars and the affect on the world population that SURGE or Crash 2.0 would have. But in each of those cases I'm hard press to make a case for over 1% world population in causalities and effects.

And even today, if you were to kill off the entire L.A. County (10.2 million people), that's 'only' 0.14% of today's 7.313 billion people...we're still rounding to 7.3 billion.

So 9 billion seems like a safe estimate, with 1.98 billion being orks. But again, it's a back of the napkin rough estimate with lots of assumptions.

[Reaver]

Good job on those numbers.

However, they don't take into account just how VITAS reached its death toll
VITAS was and is curable, the problem is the cure is very expensive. As a result, while there were many sick in the 1st world nations, there were very few deaths, as their governments/societies could bare the brunt of the costs. However, developing or 3rd world countries couldn't afford mass cures, so only the elite got treated. Meaning the death tolls were much higher. (As i recall, Madigascar is uninhabited due to VITAS)

Also, it is the developing and 3rd world countries that also have the highest birth rates. So you have a double whammy to your math.

chances are, the population isn't much more then 8 billion. After all, there are a lot of other wonderful little things that have happened too

Shedim
2 global computer crashes
Toxic disasters
Insect spirits
Dragon wars
Silly Clowns

[Medicineman]

(As i recall, Madigascar is uninhabited due to VITAS)

thats why I posted it further up 

Shedim
2 global computer crashes
Toxic disasters
Insect spirits
Dragon wars
Silly Clowns

You should add Ghouls and HMMVV to the List
(ask the Neighbour states of Asamando )
or awakened Paracritters (& Plants )

with a Dance on Barren Madegascar
( and no Penguins to save us, they must be busy fighting Killer Clowns)
Medicineman

[Nath]

Awakenings: New Magic in 2057 gave away number that suggested a world population of 3 to 4 billions.

The Shadows of... sourcebooks and The Sixth World Almanac gives population figures accounting for at least 5.16 billions, not including Chinese coastal provinces, Constantinople, Turkey and East Anatolia, Ukraine and a number of other Eastern European, Chinese, African and South American (which I estimate should give a total figure close to 5.9 billions).

The Clutch of Dragons refers to 7 billions.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Instead of trying to back-of-the-envelope things, or figure crap out otherwise, the developers and writers pulled a perfectly legitimate move: they cheated.  Stated 'current population' numbers have always been concurrent to the RL of the time.  The best guideline is to take the game date, subtract 60-61 years, and look at the RL population for the area you're wanting in order to determine the 20XX population for it.  The simple explanation is that the two VITAS outbreaks wiped out sufficient population that it has 'only now gotten up to the population of 60 years ago'.  So the SR current population would be roughly 7.125 billion souls.  That the 6th World might theoretically outstrip RL (due to ork multiple births, etc.) gets balanced out by higher infant mortality rates, lower birth rates for longer-lived species, etc., making the 'current writing' timeline always equivalent to RL's population at the time.