Love it or hate it, Facebook has come a monster. The oft-controversial social networking site just announced that is has reached the 500 million user mark.

“This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world,” said founder Mark Zuckerburg. “Now a lot more people have the opportunity to stay connected with the people they care about.”

If 500 million user sounds like a lot, it’s because it is! 500 million is greater than the population of the USA which hovers just over the 300 million mark.

500 million is more users than the population of Germany, France, England, Japan and Russia COMBINED! And that’s a lot of people.