What annual population growth is
Population growth is the annual percentage change in total population, from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (SP.POP.GROW). It is a rate, not a level, so growth can be positive, negative or close to zero, and it is measured over the calendar year that has just ended. It tells you how fast the count moved, not how large it is.
This page ranks the economies covered on this site by the latest year available. A negative value means the population fell over the year; the rate is the net of births, deaths and migration and is revised with the estimates behind it. Values are official estimates republished unmodified; there is no interpolation across missing years. Rates near zero are the hardest to read: small movements of people, or revisions of the estimates, can push the figure across zero from one release to the next.
The change column on this page is in percentage points: the difference between the two most recent annual growth rates, not the difference in population itself. A small number there can sit alongside a large movement of people — check the total population page for the underlying scale. Read the change with the year column, since economies do not all publish on the same schedule.