Origin: Latin suffix -tion
Population has 6 different meanings across 1 category:
the people who inhabit a territory or state
"the population seemed to be well fed and clothed"
a group of organisms of the same species inhabiting a given area
"they hired hunters to keep down the deer population"
(statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn
"it is an estimate of the mean of the population"
the number of inhabitants (either the total number or the number of a particular race or class) in a given place (country or city etc.)
"people come and go, but the population of this town has remained approximately constant for the past decade"
"the African-American population of Salt Lake City has been increasing"
the act of populating (causing to live in a place)
"he deplored the population of colonies with convicted criminals"
The people living within a political or geographical boundary.
"The city council released new data showing that the population had grown by ten percent over the last decade."
In plain English: A population is the total number of people or animals living in a specific area at the same time.
"The city's population has grown significantly over the last decade."
Usage: Use population to refer to the total number of people living in a specific area or country. Do not use it to describe individual groups unless you are explicitly discussing that entire collective body.
The word population comes from the Late Latin term populatio, which originally meant "a people" or "multitude." It entered English derived from the root for a group of citizens and is considered a doublet of the Spanish word población.