2QUESTION 2 OF 3
Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
300,000,000
people
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
Start with Russia, about 140 million people, and Ukraine at maybe 40 million. That leaves 13 smaller countries, from the Baltics down to Central Asia. How big is a typical one? Call it 8 million.
- Russia
- 140,000,000
- Ukraine
- + 40,000,000
- 13 others × 8,000,000
- + 104,000,000
- 140M + 40M + 104M
- ≈ 284,000,000
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Russia
- 143,700,000
- Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
- + 94,800,000
- The other 11 countries
- + 60,000,000
- World Bank 2024 total, rounded
- ≈ 300,000,000
Reference cited by Fermi: World Bank population estimates for 2024, summed across the 15 former Soviet republics
How close was your guess?
Your comparison will appear here.
Compare by ratio: divide the larger number by the smaller one. The closer to 1×, the better.