A revealing resource has been updated by ODTmaps (Amherst MA) and Population Education (Washington DC), and distributed on a copyright-free basis. It provides an intriguing and insightful view of how we fit into the world's larger community.

The complete statistics are posted at: http://odt.org/images/VillReport-a.jpg 

And the sources for the compiled data are at:  http://odt.org/images/VillReport-b.jpg 

which also includes links to previous reports compiled in 1990 and 2005.

A review of the 2014 State of the Village Report will quickly reveal how fortunate those of us are who have food, electricity, and clean water to drink! 

Here is the report:

     STATE OF THE VILLAGE REPORT – 2014 

If the world were a village of only 100 people, there would be: 

60 Asians,

16 Africans,                 

10 Europeans, 

8 people from Central & South America, Mexico & the Caribbean, 

5 from the USA and Canada, and

1 person from Australia or New Zealand

Source: www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating: 

17 people would speak a Chinese dialect (12 of them Mandarin) 

6 Spanish,

5 English,

4 people Hindi/Urdu, 

3 Arabic,

3 Portuguese,                     

This list accounts for less than half the villagers. The others speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, Lahnda, German, French, and over 7,000 other languages.

Source: www.enthnologue.com/statistics/size

In the village there would be: 

32 Christians,

23 Moslems, 

15 Hindus, 

16 Nonreligious, Agnostics, or Atheists,

  7 Buddhists, 

  6 Folk or traditional religions

 1 All other religions (including Judaism, Baha'i, Sikhism, Shintoism, 

        Taoism, Zoroastrianism, to mention just a few.

Source: www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

In this 100-person community: 

51 would live in cities.(see footnote 1)

23 would live in substandard housing. (see footnote 2)

74 adults (age 15+) live in the village; & 16 of them illiterate. (see footnote 3)

14 would suffer from malnutrition. ((see footnote 4)

11 would not have access to clean, safe drinking water. (see footnote 5)

20 people would not have any electricity. (see footnote 6)

Of the 80 that do have electricity, most would use it only for light at night. 

In the village would be 56 radios  (see footnote 7), 

         22 televisions  (see footnote 8),

         93 mobile phone subscriptions (see footnote 9),

         and 9 computers (see footnote 10)

         (some villagers own more than one of each). 

40 people are using the Internet. (see footnote 11)

17 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one).(see footnote 12)

8   people would possess 83% of the entire village's wealth. (see footnote 13)

The poorest 70% of the people would receive only 3% of the income of the village.(see footnote 14)

SOURCES:

1,3 CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov

2 www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/GlobalHousingNeed

4, 12 World Bank, World Development Indicators, http://data.worldbank.org 

5 UNICEF, www.unicef.org

6 International Energy Agency, http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energydevelopment/accesstoelectricity/

7-11 International Telecommunications Union, www.itu.int

12,13 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2013, https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=BCDB1364-A105-0560-1332EC9100FF5C83

14 Oxfam International, "Working for the Few," Oxfam Briefing Paper, January 20, 2014, p. 9. http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en_3.pdf

2014 statistics compiled by Population Education in 2014, www.populationeducation.org   

**************************

Donella Meadows' original 1990 "State of the Village Report" 

Is at:   http://www.donellameadows.org/archives/state-of-the-village-report/

General information regarding the organization that Donella Meadows founded,  

can be found at: http://www.donellameadows.org/ 

A 2005 version of the STATE OF THE VILLAGE REPORT

was published by ODTmaps and can be downloaded at:

http://odtmaps.com/behind_the_maps/population_map/if-world-were-village.asp   

For those of you familiar with earlier versions, it will come as no surprise that global inequality has increased dramatically.)

The State of the Village Report 2014 is copyright-free, but we request that you acknowledge ODTmaps.com and Population Education as the source if you reprint them or post them online.