What are the latest UN or World Bank estimates for global population by broad ethnic or racial categories in 2025?

1. What the UN and World Bank actually publish — totals and regional groupings

The UN’s Population Division publishes the World Population Prospects and related products (World Population Prospects 2024 revision and the 2025 World Urbanization Prospects) that give mid‑year global totals and detailed country and regional estimates; the UN’s published 2025 total is about 8.2 billion and its datasets are organized by country, region, age and urban/rural categories rather than by global racial categories ^{[1] [3] [4]}. The World Bank’s public population series likewise publishes mid‑year totals and projections that are derived from or harmonized with UN population inputs and are structured by country, income group and other development classifications — not by a single global race or ethnic taxonomy ^{[2] [5]}.

2. Why you won’t find a UN or World Bank “by race” number

The UN and World Bank rely on national censuses and standardized demographic categories; most national statistical systems do not collect globally comparable race categories and many countries legally prohibit or avoid racial/ethnic enumeration in national counts (the UN’s and World Bank’s data products therefore present country/region totals and demographic breakdowns rather than a single world race table) ^{[6] [2]}. The UN’s technical outputs focus on fertility, mortality, migration and age structure — the inputs that drive population projections — and do not aggregate people worldwide into racial groupings ^[4].

3. Common alternative sources and their limits

Independent sites and researchers sometimes produce “global race” tallies (for example private websites claiming counts of “white,” “Asian,” “Black,” etc.), but those syntheses apply inconsistent definitions across countries and rely on assumptions not used by UN/World Bank official series (the search results show Worldometer, WorldPopulationReview and other private aggregators that report totals but not UN/World Bank racial breakdowns) ^{[7] [8] [9]}. These alternative efforts are inherently uncertain because national categories differ (one country’s “ethnicity” is another’s “nationality”) and many countries do not collect the relevant data (available sources do not mention a single authoritative global racial table from UN/World Bank).

4. How researchers derive broad‑group estimates when needed

When academics or NGOs attempt global ethnic/racial estimates they typically map country populations to regional or linguistic proxies (for example assigning countries to “sub‑Saharan African,” “East Asian,” “European” groups) and then apply assumptions about within‑country composition; that approach is clearly visible in secondary analyses and commentaries but is not present in the UN or World Bank primary data products cited here ^{[10] [11]}. Those derived totals are model‑dependent and sensitive to classification choices; different analysts reach different numbers because of divergent group definitions and source selection ^[11].

5. Practical guidance if you need 2025 global counts by broad group

If you require a 2025 global tally by broad ethnic/racial categories, start from the UN/World Bank country totals and document every mapping decision: which countries you assign to which group, how you treat mixed or multi‑ethnic states, and how you handle countries that do not collect racial data (the UN/World Bank country totals and projections are the authoritative starting point) ^{[4] [2]}. Expect substantial methodological disputes and note that the UN and World Bank themselves do not endorse a single global racial classification ^{[4] [2]}.

6. What the cited sources do state as clear facts

The UN’s datasets and reports put the world population at approximately 8.2 billion in 2025 and present country‑ and region‑level projections through 2100; the World Bank’s population products draw heavily from the UN technical base and publish comparable mid‑year totals used for development indicators and per‑capita calculations ^{[1] [5] [4]}. The UN expects global population to continue increasing this century with a projected peak near 10.2–10.3 billion under the medium variant ^{[12] [13]}.

Limitations and transparency: my review used only the documents and webpages returned in your search. Those sources do not include any UN or World Bank release that reports a global population broken down by race or broad ethnic group for 2025; any number presented as such would be a secondary construct, not an official UN/World Bank figure (available sources do not mention a UN/World Bank racial breakdown).