The closure of the News of the World is not just the end of a 168-year-old institution but the finale for Britain's biggest-selling newspaper.

How many people read the News of the World? At its peak in 1951, circulation was around 8.4m issues sold every week - up from 400,000 at the turn of the twentieth century. That's one issue of the News of the World for every six people in the UK's then 50.2m population.

By the time its closure was announced, circulation had fallen to 2.7m - one copy for every 23 people. All newspaper circulations are falling, however, and that still leaves the News of the World as easily the best-selling Sunday newspaper.

The official circulation figures, watched religiously in newsrooms across the country, come from the ABC, which publishes audited figures each month. The chart below - which you can interact with - shows what's happened to those numbers since 1962.

But newspaper research is about more than just the ABCs and sales as shown above. These figures don't tell you the number of people who actually read it. Research companies have become expert at analysing readerships and working our how many pairs of eyes actually look at each paper.

If you look at these numbers - compiled by the National Readership Survey - often used to sell advertising in newspapers, there is still a decline, but the figures are much bigger:

But perhaps the most significant number is the audience reach for each paper - what percentage of the population read it? That figure is proportional and not influenced by changing population; it tells you how popular a paper is compared to the entire country.

Even on that measure, the figures were falling too - down to 15%.

But, by the time of its closure, what kind of readership did the News of the World have? The National Readership survey can help there too. It shows that the NoTW's readership is:

• 52% male

• 21% of its readers are aged 35-44, the biggest single group

• 61% of them are in the lowest social classes, C2, D and E

• A third of its readers are in London and the South East

We've got the full data for you to look at below, going back to the 1960s. What can you do with it?

Data summary

News of the World readership breakdown Click heading to sort table. Download this - and more - data Details Type (000s) % of readers Totals Total 7,455 100 Male Sex 3,920 52.58 Female Sex 3,534 47.4 15-24 Age 1,124 15.08 25-34 Age 1,451 19.46 35-44 Age 1,620 21.73 45-54 Age 1,263 16.94 55-64 Age 923 12.38 65+ Age 1,074 14.41 ABC1 Class 2,926 39.25 C2DE Class 4,529 60.75 North Region 500 6.71 North West Region 632 8.48 Yorkshire & Humberside Region 585 7.85 West Midlands Region 688 9.23 East Midlands Region 486 6.52 East Anglia Region 308 4.13 South West Region 547 7.34 South East Region 1,538 20.63 Greater London Region 1,060 14.22 Wales Region 379 5.08 Scotland Region 732 9.82

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