Editor’s Note: Read about apocalypse believers’ various big finish predictions.
Story highlights
Some believe the world will end with the Mayan "Long Count" calendar December 21
The Mayans used three different types of calendars
More than 200,000 people Googled "end of the world" terms on December 20
52 million tourists are expected to visit Mexico during "Year of the Maya" in 2012
1 in 10 - People around the world who believe the world might end in 2012, according to a May poll by Reuters.
3 - Different types of calendars used by the Mayans.
5,125 years - Length of the Mayan “Long Count” calendar.
144,000 - Days in a b’ak’tun, a cycle in the Mayan calendar which restarts around December 21. That’s about 394 years.
52 million - Tourists expected to visit Mexico during the “Year of the Maya” in 2012, according to the Mexican Ministry of Tourism.
200,000+ - Searches for “End of the World” and related terms on Google on December 20, the top search as of this writing.
200 - 300 - Calls per week NASA has been receiving recently from people asking if the world really is about to end.
36 - Percentage of Americans who believe increasing severity of recent natural disasters is a sign of the apocalypse.
6 - Times since its discovery in 1989 Asteroid 4179 Toutatis has passed “close” to the Earth. The nearest to us it came was 962,951 miles away.
$50,000 - $120,000 - Price of a luxury underground bunker, sold by Atlas Survivor Shelters.com
189 - Residents of Bugarach, a French village receiving hordes of visitors who believe the only safe place to hide during the apocalypse is inside a “sacred” mountain there where extraterrestrials live.
69 - Peak position of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” by R.E.M., on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart in 1988.
2 - Dates in 2011 Christian broadcaster Harold Camping predicted as dates of the end of the world, May 21 and then October 21.
27 - Percentage of respondents to a National Geographic survey who felt somewhat likely that a catastrophic event would happen on December 21, 2012.
27 - Percentage of those surveyed who said they make sure to “resolve feuds with loved ones” first if there was a possibility the world might end.
8 - Percentage of those who thought they could only survive about a day in a doomsday scenario with supplies they had at home.