there is no real way to know, as no one keeps track of such a thing to the last person. however, when estimating with the numbers given by different dive agencys and putting them together you get close to 20 million divers. with a global population of 6.7 billion people on earth. Its about 0.3% of people dive. Now that's not to say that all these people dive actively. Some may have already died, stop diving, only dive once in 5 years, etc. So the the # is most likely less then estimated.
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It turns out that nobody actually knows the real answer to this question. In fact, this question is the one most frequently asked of dive certification agency PADI. Renee Duncan of Divers Alert Network, a diving safety organization associated with Duke University, has said, "There's really no true number for certified divers because this is not a regulated industry, so it will always be a squishy figure. We've quoted the 1 to 3 million number on our diving fatality reports." Ben Davison, publisher of the dive industry journal "Undercurrent", researched this topic for a recent article. He puts the number of active divers (who make at least 5 dives per year) at 1.2 million, plus or minus 15%.
An important component of the "How many divers are there?" question is "How many new divers are certified each year?" In 2002, four dive certification agencies, PADI, SSI, NAUI and SDI reported certifying 177,000 new divers. These are the four largest training agencies in the world, but there are others as well. A good estimate for the total number of new divers trained worldwide is probably closer to 225,000. The annual attrition rate of these new divers is also widely debated, with estimates ranging from 50% to more than 80%.