This paper describes a tool for long-term global change studies; it is an update of the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) with estimates of some of the underlying demographic driving factors of global change. We estimate total and urban/rural population numbers, densities and fractions (including built-up area) for the Holocene, roughly the period 10 000 BC to AD 2000 with a spatial resolution of 5 min longitude/latitude. With a total global population increase from 2 to 6145 million people over that time span, resulting in a global population density increase of < 0.1 cap/km²to almost 46 cap/km²and a urban built-up area evolving from almost zero to 0.5 million km²(still only <0.5% of the total global land surface, but with a huge impact in terms of demands of food, services, building materials, etc.), it is clear that this must have had, and will continue to have, a profound influence on the Earth’s environment and its associated (climate) change. We hope that this data base can contribute to the Earth System Modelers community to gain better insight into long-term global change research.