By the beginning of world war 1, about how much of the world's population lived in a colony?
a) one-sixteenth
b) one-eighth
c) one-third
d) one half

By the beginning of the First World War, the world population was about 1.6 billion. Europe and North America controlled 84 % of the land surface. There were only 35 independent countries and almost half of them were in the Americas. Asia had the largest part of world`s population : about 60% and around 390 million of its inhabitants lived in colonies. Also the whole Africa was colonized ( about 4.5 % of the world population ). Therefore we can calculate that about 33 % of the world`s population lived in colony. C ) one-third.