--- title: "How many houses are there in the world? about 2.4 billion hous" description: "about 2.4 billion households How the figure is estimated, how confident it is, and what makes the scale graspable." url: https://atoneplace.net/how-many/houses-in-the-world/ site: "At One Place" --- # How many houses are there in the world? **How many houses are there in the world?: about 2.4 billion households** If world average household size fell by half a person, the world would need roughly 400 million more homes without a single extra person being born. The countable thing is households rather than houses, and there are roughly 2.4 billion of them. Average household size varies enormously — about 2.5 people in Europe and North America, over 6 in parts of West Africa and the Middle East — so the same population produces very different housing counts in different places. Household size has been falling almost everywhere for a century, which means the number of homes needed grows faster than the population does. That single fact drives more housing policy than population growth. ## How the figure is arrived at Population divided by average household size, both taken from national censuses. Censuses define a household as people sharing living quarters and meals, which is why the count captures shared flats and multi-generational homes as one household each, and does not correspond to buildings. ## How confident it is - **Low estimate:** 2,200,000,000 - **High estimate:** 2,600,000,000 - **Spread:** 1.2× between the bounds ## Other things people built counts - [How many countries are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/countries/) — 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting - [How many cars are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/cars-in-the-world/) — about 1.5 billion motor vehicles - [How many planes are in the air right now?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/planes-in-the-air-right-now/) — roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment - [How many languages are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/languages/) — about 7,150 living languages - [How many McDonald's are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/mcdonalds-restaurants/) — about 43,000 in over 100 countries - [How many phones are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/phones-in-the-world/) — about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people - [How many nuclear weapons are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/nuclear-weapons/) — about 12,200 warheads - [How many websites are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/websites/) — about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active - [How many books have ever been published?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/books-ever-published/) — about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now - [How many airports are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/airports-in-the-world/) — about 45,000 with runways — but only around 4,000 with scheduled airline service - [How many ATMs are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/atms-in-the-world/) — about 3 million - [How many cities are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/cities/) — about 10,000 with over 50,000 people; 33 megacities over 10 million - [How many buildings are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/buildings-in-the-world/) — somewhere between 1.5 and 4 billion - [How many computers are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/computers-in-the-world/) — roughly 2 billion personal computers in use ## Common questions ### How many houses are there in the world? about 2.4 billion households ### How is that estimated? Population divided by average household size, both taken from national censuses. Censuses define a household as people sharing living quarters and meals, which is why the count captures shared flats and multi-generational homes as one household each, and does not correspond to buildings. ## Related pages - [How many countries are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/countries/) - [How many cars are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/cars-in-the-world/) - [How many planes are in the air right now?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/planes-in-the-air-right-now/) - [How many languages are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/languages/) - [How many McDonald's are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/mcdonalds-restaurants/) - [How many phones are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/phones-in-the-world/) - [How many nuclear weapons are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/nuclear-weapons/) - [How many websites are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/websites/) - [How many people are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-alive-right-now/) - [How many stars are there in the universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/stars-in-the-universe/) - [How many bones are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bones-in-the-human-body/) - [How many grains of sand are there on Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/grains-of-sand-on-earth/) - [How many ants are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/ants-on-earth/) - [How many trees are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/trees-on-earth/) ## Sources - World Population Prospects — United Nations (https://population.un.org/wpp/)