One interesting webpage going round the office yesterday were the UK Population Statistics.
Looking at the figures for 2002-2003 we saw the total UK population grow from 59,321,700 people to 59,553,800 people.
That means the population grows by approximately 1 person every 2 and a half minutes.
I’ve knocked together a quick JavaScript that can calculate the approximate population of the UK assuming this increase is constant.
We work out the per minute increase in population. We also know the starting population of the UK on the 1st January 2003, all we have to do is work out how minutes have elapsed between then and now, and multiply that by the population growth per minute.
var startDate = new Date("January 1, 2003 00:00:00");
var perMinuteIncrease = 232100 / (365 * 24 * 60);
var startPop = 59553800;
// return the estimated current population of the UK.
function currentPopulation() {
var currentDate = new Date();
var diffMinutes = Math.floor((currentDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime()) / 60000);
return Math.round(startPop + (diffMinutes * perMinuteIncrease));
}
To get the current population you just call the currentPopulation() function.
Let’s see what the approximate current UK population is now according to this script…
Just reload/refresh the page to get an updated population count.