How Big Is Seven Billion?

Don't look to the stars for answers. On the clearest night only a few thousand are visible to the naked eye.
And don't even try counting to seven billion. Even if each number took just a second to say (and you didn't lose your place), getting there would take more than two centuries.
Making sense of a figure so gigantic isn't easy, but with a little digging and a bit of math, the number begins to emerge all around us.

7,000,000,000=?

7 billion text messages - Number sent in the U.S. every 30 hours.
That's about 65,000 every second. No wonder our thumbs are tired.

7 billion steps - would take you around the Earth 133 times*.
Assuming an average step of 2.5 feet, you could also walk the entire Appalachian Trail more than 1,500 times. Yet to be calculated: how many pairs of boots you'd wear out.
* It would be a very long walk.Total distance is 3.3 million miles.

7 billion kilometers - Pluto's maximum distance from the sun.
In case you were wondering, its minimum distance is 4.4 billion kilometers (2.7 billion miles).

7 billion years - Half the age of the universe.
NASA puts the birth of the universe at nearly 14 billion years ago.

7 billion seconds - Age of quahog clam that once held record for longest living animal.
That's about 220 years. If it had hatched in 1791, it would still be alive today.
1791 is when Vermont became a state. And when Mozart died (But it wasn't a clam that killed him.)

28-year-old Han Chinese male.
- China is the most populated country with 1.3 billion people
- 1.01 men for every woman
- by 2030, China will lose its top population status, and the most typical human face will be Indian.

- 82% are literate
- 51% live in urban environments
- 40% work in services
38% in agriculture
22% in industry
- 33% are Christian
21% Muslim
13% Hindu
- 19% are Chinese
17% Indian
4% American
- 13% speak Mandarin as their first language
5% Spanish
5% English