How Many People Were Born During the Queen's Reign?

Queen Elizabeth II, the U.K.'s long-standing monarch and head of state, who died on September 8, was an ever-present figure in the lives of most people in the world.

While it is impossible to get a fully accurate figure for population, it's safe to say that, since the Queen's accession to the British throne in 1952, over 9 billion people lived during her reign, and most will have at the very least been aware of her.

According to worldwide births' data from scientific publisher Our World in Data, 9.068 billion people have been born since 1952 (and 3.625 billion have died).

If we add this to the estimate of the world's population (according to the United Nations Population Division) who are currently aged 70 and over, which is 485 million, that makes a total of over 9.5 billion people that have been alive during her reign.

How Many People in the World Can Recall a Time Before the Queen?

This is easier to work out. The Queen had been on the throne since 1952. Add on a few years given that people can't recall much from birth to around four or five years old, and the best guide would be to look at the world population over 75. According to the U.N., there were around 283 million people in the world aged 75 and over in 2021.

The U.N. estimate at that point for the world population was 7.909 billion. That would suggest that currently 7.6 billion people on earth have no prior memory to the Queen's reign.

Since her reign began, the Queen saw other substantial changes to the world population.

Aside from rising from 2.59 billion to around 8 billion now, in 1952, average life expectancy in the world was 46.7. It is now over 72. China and India were the world's biggest countries, as they are now, but with less than half the populations they have today. The U.S., which is currently over 335 million, had around 152 million people.

The Commonwealth—the political organisation that has its origins in the former British Empire—grew during the Queen's reign from eight countries to a membership of 54, with over 2.5 billion people.

Lastly, the Queen's image has appeared on the currency of many countries, and her image has been reproduced on stamps and coins so many times an accurate figure is impossible to work out.

One estimate of the number of stamps with her image is 220 billion; since her coronation, the U.K.'s Royal Mint alone has produced 68 billion coins with her image on them. That makes nearly 300 billion times in the U.K. alone. Add in the rest of the Commonwealth, and in total her image may well have been reproduced well over half a trillion times.