500

Wow, so I completely failed to notice that my last post was actually my 500th. Quite the milestone, and I'm amazed that I didn't know it. Anyways, onto something else... I found these stats on the net, they are a few years old but I am certain that things haven't changed that drastically since their publication. I've always had a weird preoccupation with population rates and these rates come as a bit of a surprise to me, and I'm not sure why.

The latest data from the Population Reference Bureau shows that
there are twenty countries in the world with negative or zero
natural population growth.  This is unprecedented in history!
This negative or zero natural population growth means that these
countries have more deaths than births or an even number of
deaths and births; this figure does not include the impacts of
immigration or emigration. Even including immigration over
emigration, only one of the twenty countries (Austria) is expected
to grow between 2006 and 2050.  The country with the highest
decrease in the natural birth rate is Ukraine, with a natural
decrease of 0.8% each year. Ukraine is expected to lose 28% of
their population between now and 2050 (from 46.8 million now to
33.4 million in 2050). Russia and Belarus follow close behind at
a 0.6% natural decrease and Russia will lose 22% of their
population by 2050 - that is a loss of more than 30 million people
(from 142.3 million today to 110.3 million in 2050).  Japan is the
only non-European country in the list and it has a 0% natural birth
increase and is expected to lose 21% of its population by 2050
(shrinking from 127.8 million to a mere 100.6 million in 2050).
The streets of Tokyo won't be as crowded in a few decades as they
are today! Here's the list of the countries with negative natural
increase or zero negative increase in population... Ukraine: 0.8%
natural decrease annually; 28% total population decrease by 2050

Russia: -0.6%; -22%
Belarus -0.6%; -12%
Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%
Latvia -0.5%; -23%
Lithuania -0.4%; -15%
Hungary -0.3%; -11%
Romania -0.2%; -29%
Estonia -0.2%; -23%
Moldova -0.2%; -21%
Croatia -0.2%; -14%
Germany -0.2%; -9%
Czech Republic -0.1%; -8%
Japan 0%; -21%
Poland 0%; -17%
Slovakia 0%; -12%
Austria 0%; 8% increase
Italy 0%; -5%
Slovenia 0%; -5%
Greece 0%; -4%