The Population Division facilitates access by Governments to information on population trends as an input to government policy formulation, and supports implementation of the recommendations issued by the International Conference on Population and Development.
It provides information on population trends to the United Nations system and the international community in general, and prepares in-depth studies on population questions.
It stimulates debate on major population issues by organizing meetings of groups of experts or government representatives and by distributing technical training materials such as manuals and software.

The Population Division website, mainly in English, provides access to information and study findings in the following fields: fertility, mortality, international and internal migration, population ageing, demographic trends, population policies, and population and development interrelationships.

Conference and workshop documents posted on the site are partially available in several languages.

Publications, databases, newsletters, manuals and software are accessible free of charge or can be ordered online.

The website features the following databases in particular:
Population estimates and projections
World urbanization prospects,
Trends in the world migrant stock,
PRED Databank, ( Population, Resources, Environment Development ),
World population policies
World contraceptive use

The site also provides a link to POPIN (Population Information Network), a decentralized community of population institutions organized into global, regional and national networks.