Factoid: Populations of Nations

I think it is important to always keep the populations of the various nations of the world in mind. In a modern economy, people are the most valuable resource a nation has. While not all economies are as modern as others, a nation's population give a good idea of the nation's economic potential.

The US Census Bureau maintains stats on the US and world population, and lists the following nations as having the ten largest populations:

1. China	1,361,512,535	6. Pakistan	199,085,847
2. India	1,251,695,584	7. Nigeria	181,562,056
3. United States	321,362,789	8. Bangladesh	168,957,745
4. Indonesia	255,993,674	9. Russia	142,423,773
5. Brazil	204,259,812	10. Japan	126,919,659

The first thing that strikes you about this list is that, when it comes to population, there's China and India, and then there is everyone else. 

Notably absent from this list is the EU. The Census Bureau does not list the EU as a country, but Eurostat estimates the EU's population at about 490 million and the Euro Zone's population at about 320 million. Therefore, the "Europe" can be placed in either the # 3 or #4 position depending on how you define it (and whether you care to lump the nations together).