World Population is projected to reach 7 Billion by 2012 and to exceed 9 Billion by 2050 in a new revision of World Population Prospects just released by the The United Nations Population Division. This documents the current United Nations official estimations and projections of population for all countries of the world, covering the period 1950-2050.
A comprehensive summary of the results of the 2008 Revision is available and includes 26 key findings of the “most recent national population censuses and of numerous specialized population surveys carried out around the world. The 2008 Revision provides the demographic data and indicators to assess trends at the global, regional and national levels and to calculate many other key indicators commonly used by the United Nations system.”
A set of selected tables and an interactive database is available from the website of the Population Division at http://www.unpopulation.org