(a) How many people in the world?
(b) How many people are in the world?
Do we have to put 'are' or not?
Also, will we answer like a) or b)?
(a) Many people are in the world.
(b) Many people in the world.
Which is grammatically correct?
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The first seems to be an incomplete question. "How many people in the world do/are/etc what?" The proposed answers are rather facile. – Weather Vane May 8 at 17:55
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Our Contributor's Guide has many good formatting tips, as well as other helpful guidance, such as when to accept an answer. Please read through them. – J.R.♦ May 8 at 21:52
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As an aside, it would be more common to ask, "How many people are there in the world?". And the answer would be "There are billions of people in the world." – The Photon May 8 at 22:09
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“How many people are in the world” is a complete sentence. "How many people in the world" is a sentence fragment; it contains no verb. "How many people in the world" can serve as a noun phrase, for instance in "How many people in the world have a cell phone?" the entire phrase "How many people in the world" serves as the subject of the verb "have".
