Population: Double by 1986

What part of the world has the fastest growing population? Not India and not Communist China. The population explosion is strongest in tropical South America—a 5,300,000-sq.-mi. area encompassing Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and the three Guianas, British, Dutch and French (see map). According to the Population Reference Bureau, an independent, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., these nine countries are growing at an average rate of 3.2% each year, compared with about 2% for India and Red China. At cur rent rates, their 121 million population will double by 1986; in 100 years something like 3.8...