• Question: how many people in the UK

    Asked by arora to Lauren, Marisol, Michael, Sarah, Sophie on 13 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Marisol Collins

      Marisol Collins answered on 13 Nov 2016:

      Hi Arora!

      I don’t know how many people there are in the UK, but I would be interested to find out! Let’s investigate.. We can do a bit of research on the internet and find out. First though, I have to be sure I include everyone in the UK, so that would be England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, right?

      Now there is an awful lot of information out there on the internet, and we know that not all of it is accurate or true. An important part of being a scientist and a researcher is making sure that we know where best to look when we are investigating something, so we don’t get caught out by false information. This is an important skill to learn, and one that I am sure you learn in school too!

      Ok, I know that the Government would really need to know how many people there are, and they would estimate this by gathering lots of information each year. So, I would first look at who does officially does this for the UK Government.
      Give me a sec..

      Ok, I can see that the Office of National Statistics are the people who collect all sorts of information on the people that live in the UK. On their website (check out http://www.ons.gov.uk) they say that the latest figure for how many people there are in the UK is…

      65,110,000 people!

      That’s an awful lot of people! We did it, we found out how many! 🙂

    • Photo: Michael Rivera

      Michael Rivera answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Cool stuff, Marisol!

      Did you know that when Stonehenge was built, and the Pharaohs were ruling Egypt, in 3000 BC – there were only around 100,000 people in Britain? The fact that we have 65 million people is amazing just in 5000 years’ time!!

      Around 2000 years ago, when the Romans ruled England, London only had 35000 people. Back then it was called ‘Londonium’ and had only one bridge crossing the River Thames. Now, London has over 8 million people and 33 bridges in total!

      Michael 🙂

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