An area chart titled 'People living in democracies and autocracies, World' showing the global population distribution across different political regimes from 1789 to 2025, with data from Our World in Data.

Area chart depicting the number of people living in various political regimes (democracies and autocracies) worldwide from 1789 to 2025. The chart shows an increasing global population over time, with a significant portion living in closed autocracies and a growing, but smaller, portion in liberal democracies. Categories include 'No regime data', 'People living in closed autocracies', 'in probably closed aut.', 'in probably elect. aut.', 'in electoral autocracies', 'in probably elect. dem.', 'in

People living in democracies and autocracies, World Classification by Lührmann et al. (2018) based on expert estimates by V-Dem. Our World in Data 8 billion 7 billion 6 billion 5 billion 4 billion 3 billion 2 billion 1 billion 0 1789 1850 1900 1950 2000 2025 No regime data People living in closed autocracies in probably closed aut. in probably elect. aut. in electoral autocracies in probably elect. aut. in probably elect. dem. in electoral democracies in probably elect. dem. in probably lib. dem. in liberal democracies Data source: V-Dem (2026); Population based on various sources (2024) OurWorldinData.org/democracy | CC BY