The number has increased. vs The number has been increased.

Both phrases are fine/correct, but they're used in different contexts. 'The number has increased' is used to indicate that the number has gone up. On the other hand, 'The number has been increased' is used to indicate that someone or something's intentionally raised the number.

Explained by Miss E.
Editor at TextRanch

Last updated: September 05, 2024 • 10379 views

The number has increased.

This phrase is correct and commonly used to indicate that the number has gone up.

This phrase is used to convey that the quantity or amount of something has gone up or become larger.

Examples:

The number of participants has increased since last year.
The sales figures have increased significantly.
The temperature has increased steadily over the past few days.

Show examples from the web [+]

Recently the number of thieves has increased.
In recent years, the number of seizures has increased.
The guards report the number of sussicious men has increased.
With the most recent enlargement, the number of official languages has increased.
2008 has experienced a rise not only in digital installations but also in the countries where the new projection technology has been introduced: with the new entries - Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Malta and Romania - the number has increased to 30.
Cibus Tec 2016 did not disappoint expectations, the number of visitors has increased exponentially.
The number of meetings has also increased.
The number of fakes has recently increased.
They are thrown into the streets, why? Because they are unable to pay for their lodging. The number of these cases has increased.
Numerous newspapers are being closed down daily and unfortunately the number of executions has increased significantly.
A study in the journal Science shows that the polar ice caps instead becoming thicker and even the World Wildlife Fund reports that the number of polar bears has increased.
It is difficult to know if this increase in the infringements detected means that the rate of detection of serious infringements is improving or if the number of infringements committed has increased.
With the creation of the hotel site, we have much more visibility on the internet and we also found that the number of bookings has increased significantly.
From year to year the number of students has continually increased.
That strategy has been hailed as a success by the Italian Union of Workers (UIL) and by the British Trade Union Congress (TUC), and the number of women involved has increased.
In present the largest bear population of all Europe is found in Romania and it has been kept constantly under control since 1990. By constant control for the past 10 years the number of bears has continually increased.
And the number of cooperative members increased.
The numbers of participants have increased.
In no Tickless group the number of parasites was increased.
In the second survey, the number of enterprises was increased.

Alternatives:

The number has gone up.
The number has risen.
The number has grown.
The number has escalated.
The number has surged.

The number has been increased.

This phrase is correct and is used when someone or something has intentionally raised the number.

This phrase is used to indicate that someone or something has deliberately raised the quantity or amount of something.