Plural of population; all the organisms of a particular species living in an area, or all the people living in a place.
From Latin 'populatio,' derived from 'populus' (people). The term became especially important in the modern era for statistics and biology.
The word 'population' became scientifically standardized in the 1700s when governments started counting people—before that, we just said 'people' or 'inhabitants'—showing how administration and science create new vocabulary.
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