If the world were a village of 1000 people

--Taken from research done by Dona Meadows. The information has been updated over the years, but the numbers remain close to the original 1990 publication.

If the world were a village of 1,000 people, it would include:

· 584 Asians
· 124 Africans
· 95 East and West Europeans
· 84 Latin Americans
· 55 Soviets (includes Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians & others)
· 52 North Americans
· 6 Australians and New Zealanders

The people of the village have considerable difficulty in communicating:

· 165 people speak Mandarin
· 86 English
· 83 Hindi/Urdu
· 64 Spanish
· 58 Russian
· 37 Arabic

That list accounts for the mother tongues of only half the villagers. The other half speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French and 200 other languages.

In this village of 1,000 there are:

· 329 Christians (187 Catholics, 84 Protestants, 31 Orthodox)
· 178 Moslems
· 167 "non-religious"
· 132 Hindus
· 60 Buddhists
· 45 atheists
· 3 Jews
· 86 all other religions

* One-third (330) of the 1,000 people in the world village are children and only 60 are over the age of 65. Half the children are immunized against preventable infectious diseases such as measles and polio. The other half are not.

* This year 28 babies will be born. Ten people will die, 3 of them for lack of food, 1 from cancer, 2 of the deaths are of babies born within the year. One person of the 1,000 is infected with the HIV virus; that person most likely has not yet developed a full-blown case of AIDS.

* With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1,018.

* In this 1,000-person community, 200 people receive 75 percent of the income; another 200 receive only 2 percent of the income.

* Only 70 people of the 1,000 own an automobile (although some of the 70 own more than one automobile).

* About one-third have access to clean, safe drinking water.

* Of the 670 adults in the village, half are illiterate.

In the village of 1,000 people, there are:

· 5 soldiers
· 7 teachers
· 1 doctor
· 3 refugees driven from home by war or drought

The village has a total budget each year, public and private, of over $3 million - $3,000 per person if it is distributed evenly (which it isn't).

Of the total $3 million:

· $181,000 goes to weapons and warfare
· $159,000 for education
· $132,000 for health care

The Miniature Earth: 2010 Official Version...



What do all of these numbers mean? What do they represent in terms of the Great Commission and global missions?