YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The world's population has hit eight billion, just 11 years after passing the seven-billion milestone, BBC reports citing the UN.

After a big surge in the middle of the 20th Century, population growth is already slowing down.

It could take 15 years to reach nine billion and the UN doesn't expect to reach 10 billion until 2080.

It's hard to calculate the number of people in the world accurately, and the UN admits its sums could be out by a year or two.

But 15 November is its best estimate for the eight billion line to be crossed.

In previous years, the UN has selected babies to represent the five, six and seven-billionth children.

A few minutes after he was born in July 1987, Matej Gaspar had a flashing camera in his tiny face and a gaggle of besuited politicians surrounding his exhausted mother.

Thirty-five years later the world's five-billionth baby is trying to forget his ceremonious entry into the world. His Facebook page suggests he's living in Zagreb, happily married and working as a chemical engineer. But he avoids interviews and declined to speak to the BBC.

Since then, three billion more people have been added to our global community.

Just outside Dhaka in Bangladesh, Sadia Sultana Oishee is helping her mum, peeling potatoes for dinner. She's 11 and would rather be outside playing football but her parents run a pretty tight ship.

The family had to move here when their business, selling fabric and saris, was hit by the pandemic. Life is less expensive in the village, so they can still afford to pay school fees for their three daughters.

Oishee is the youngest and the family's lucky charm. Born in 2011, she was named one of the world's seven-billionth babies.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the most rapidly declining populations in the world, there is a 23-year-old Adnan Mevic. Being the six-billionth baby led to an invitation to meet his hero, Cristiano Ronaldo, at Real Madrid, when he was 11.

The three main bodies that make projections on global population - the UN, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and the IIASA-Wittgenstein Centre in Vienna.

The UN says the global population will peak in the 2080s at 10.4 billion but the IHME and Wittgenstein believe it will happen sooner - between 2060 and 2070, at less than 10 billion.