This is a simple question, im hoping someone will have the answer.
What is the world percentage of people that can ride a unicycle?
or at least americas percentage…?
Can anyone help, ive been wondering for a while
Chase
Are you sure? Have a think about it for a minute.
Sorry to disappoint you but you won’t get any sort of satisfying answer. It’s just to difficult to estimate. It’d be great to know though, I agree. 
Andrew
Since there are currently 3,289 members on this forum, I propose the lower bound of 3289/6500000000 = 0.0000506% of the world rides a unicycle. 
…I think that should be recalculated using the population of english speaking nations, because with a few exceptions, those are the people represented here.
Yes, Japan by itself could significantly dent that calculation. What a shame, too that so few, if any, Japanese unicyclists come in here.
Another statistic is that probably half the world’s population could ride if they tried.
Nao
He said “lower bound”.That means it is the absolute lowest possible.
The actual calculation is probably WAY WAY higher. I would bet 0.1% (1/1000), although I have nothing to back this up.
Only half? I would think it considerably higher than that.
Being on this forum does not indicate the ability to ride a unicycle. This would not be a valid lower bound.
I agree. I would qualitatively say “most” because we all know it’s about determination, not balance.
I firmly believe it is much lower than that; perhaps 10% at most. A given potential rider must have a) sufficient natural balance, b) sufficient determination, c) actual physical capability (this encompasses handicaps, age, and the like), and the desire.
Remember that the world’s population at any given point is not a homogeneous mass of healthy 20 year olds with sound legs, feet, etc… It includes all ages, all degrees of health, all degrees of nutrition, blah blah blah.
Mathematically, to one decimal place, the accurate answer is 0%
To two decimal places, it is almost certainly 0%.
There are around 6 000 000 000 people in the world.
1% would be 60 000 000 unicyclists.
60 000 000 is approximately the entire population of the UK, including very young children and very old and infirm people, people with severe disabilities etc.
Probably more.
I don’t think point a) eliminates very many people; only those with rare inner ear conditions and such.
Point c) is a non-trivial population, but nowhere near 50%.
And point b), I think is addressed by Naomi’s “if they tried.”
I certainly don’t think that 50% of the world will learn to unicycle. But, “if they tried” (given sufficient determination), I would say that well over 50% of the world has the physical capability of learning.
[QUOTE=phlegm]
Since there are currently 3,289 members on this forum
How did you arrive at 3,289 Members? When I view the home page, it shows 12,028 members.
i dont hink this question will ever be answered not all the unicyclist in world are on this forum and if they dont we can tell if they do
There is a semantics issue here. I hear you saying, “If they tried until they got it” which effectively eliminates desire/persistence as a limiting factor. I have seen too many able-bodied people self-eliminate either before trying, after 5 seconds of trying, or even after weeks of trying, that I think it’s non-trivial (a word which here means, “meaningless”) to eliminate motivation as a crucial factor. The alternative is to force someone to try until they get it. Hmmmm. When do you stop forcing them?
I’m sticking with my < 10%.
Your assessment would be easiest to prove.
I remember being in a van with a bunch of other unicycling geeks at CA MUni Weekend 2003, getting into semantic argument after semantic argument, when Bevan said, “please, no more semantic arguments!” and someone else, Eric I think, replied, “What exactly do you mean by that?”
I will agree that far less than 50% of the world’s population has the persistence and interest necessary to learn to unicycle. But if terrorists from Cirque du Soleil had kidnapped their daughter and were threatening to throw her off the high wire without a net unless they learned to unicycle, more than 50% would be able to learn.
Well a lot of girls ride uni here (GERMANY ) . My Dad and I are the only ones in our city who ride muni. The people stare when they see us jump so i guess not that many can muni/uni around us.
On the home page it lists the number of members as 12,029. Which is probably somewhat high because of people who are inactive or people who hold multiple accounts(if that happens). Either way, I’d say 3,289 is a very low number. This forum does not account for nearly all of the english speaking unicyclists never mind the Japanese and others.
There are currently 4 active unicyclists in Ponoka, I am the only one on this forum. In every town, every bike shop, I always seem to hear word of some guy down the street who rides. None of these guys are on the forums, they just ride(or rode) by themselves because unicycling seems an interesting hobby. If the numbers of riders compared to the number of riders on this forum was consitant to my area, there could easily by ten times the number of riders as forum members. I don’t think this forum is an accurate way to gauge the number of uniyclists in the least.
Another question is, what expirience is needed to be considered a unicyclist. a LOT of people have tried to ride, I’ve found quite a few have ridden their friends unicycle a bit, fewer own a unicycle, and even less actually ride consistantly with the motive of becoming better.
Figuring out even a ball park number for a population percentage of unicyclists, is an improbable, if not impossible feat. There are so many riders not connected to the Unicyclist community that could only be found with carefull searching, or the random event of running into one somewhere.
Sorry to disappoint Unitik908, but I don’t think you are going to get an accurate answer to your question. Just be proud to be one of the few, even if we don’t know exactly how few we are.
I clicked on “Members List” and scrolled to the bottom of the page. Whether they all ride or not, I’d bet money that there are more than 3,289 people in the world that ride. That’s the real question. What percentage would you be willing to bet on? 
So, perhaps we can start a World Unicycle Day and have everyone ride eastward at the same time. Then we can turn back time, right? 