The continent of Asia covers 29.4% of the Earth's land area and has a population of around 4.5 billion (as of 2015), accounting for about 60% of the world population. The combined population of both China and India are estimated to be over 2.7 billion people as of 2015.Asia's population is projected to grow to 5.26 billion by 2050, or about 54% of projected world population at that time. Population growth in Asia was close to 1.2% p.a. as of 2015, with highly disparate rates. Many West Asian countries have growth rates above 2% p.a., notably Pakistan at 2.4% p.a., while China has a growth rate below 0.5% p.a..