UK population

The population of the UK passed the 60 million mark some time last week, according to the British press. Growing up it had always been listed as 56m, so there’s an extra 4m people here since I was a kid. I wonder who the 60 millionth person was and did they win one of those prizes like shoppers get when they’re supposedly the millionth customer?

Of course, populations are a perfect target for significant figures. How can we really know the exact population of any geographic location. There’s always going to be a few births and deaths while you’re counting, not forgetting those leaving our shores forever on a plane or a group of refugees semi-suffocated in a shipping container finding their way into new life of poverty and desperation in their host country.

Indeed, no sooner had the news of the 60m mark being passed than the media was reporting that this figure was 1.4m too low, because of miscounting of illegal immigrants.

Still, we can always rely on Google to give us the “true” number - search UK population and you’ll get the figure 60,441,457, as pulled from the CIA Fact Book, each one a significant figure.

Of course, this will have changed markedly when you next look!