A wonderful way to admire animals while promoting the importance of conservation
The current official count of the global population stands at 8.2 billion. However, a new way of estimating rural populations has been discovered, and has revealed that we may have been vastly undercounting people who live in these areas.
Understanding the population of rural areas can be difficult, but there are also many surprises in cities, too. Some unassuming small places have a very high number of people per square mile/kilometer, while some populous cities are not as dense as they seem.Curious? Click through to learn some fascinating facts about population density.
Population density is essentially the number of people living per unit of area. It’s calculated by dividing the total population within a geographic area by its land area.
The measurement is usually done by calculating the number of persons per square kilometer or square mile. This will tell us essentially how crowded a place is.
There are a number of factors that affect population density, namely economic opportunities, availability of resources, infrastructure, natural barriers, as well as things such as government policies.
Monaco is the most densely populated country in the world, and Macao (China) is the most densely populated administrative territory in the world.
Greenland (Denmark), with just around 0.03 people per square km, is the least populated region on Earth.
Tokyo in Japan is the most populous city in the world, but Manila in the Philippines takes the top spot as the world’s most densely populated city.
Yes, some people do live in Antarctica, but most people in the southernmost continent are there on a temporary basis (mostly scientists and researchers).
Russia may be the largest country in the world when it comes to land area, but large parts of it remain unpopulated. The nation has just over eight inhabitants per square kilometer.
With a staggering 268 billion cubic feet of water, Scotland’s Loch Ness could fit the entire world’s population, and this could be done 10 times over! We’re just not sure Nessie would be too pleased about it...
The Kowloon Walled City was located inside Hong Kong. Until it was destroyed in 1994, it was home to 33,000 people.
Kowloon Walled City had a density of 1.2 million per square km (3.2 million per square mile).
For the sake of comparison, New York City has a population density of just over 11,000 per square km (29,000 per square mile).
Alaska has a very low population density in general, but when it comes to the city of Whittier, everyone lives in the Begich Towers Condominium.
Whittier is one close community. The nearly 200 residents all live in the same 14-story building.
With a population density of about 1.28 residents per square mile, Alaska is the least densely populated state in the US. Unlike Alaska’s 665,400 square miles of territory, Manhattan has an area of about 22.83 square miles.
If Manhattan had the population density of Alaska, only 29 people would live there! This goes to show how much difference there can be in population density within the same country.
An urban development built in the ‘60s in the town of Vernier, Switzerland, is home to over 6,000 residents. The building is called Le Lignon.
Le Lignon has a floor space of 930,000 square meters (10 million square feet). It is one of the world's longest residential blocks.
Nunavut has a population density of 0.02 people per square kilometer (0.05 per square mile).
The capital of Nunavut is Iqaluit, which has just over 7,000 residents. The territory is less densely populated than Greenland.
According to the Census Bureau, in 2022 Guttenberg, New Jersey, was home to 11,446 people and had a population density of 59,305.7 people per square mile.
According to a 2020 census, Friendship Heights Village in Maryland had a population of 5,360, and a whopping population density of 90,848 people per square mile.
Dharavi in Mumbai, India, is one of the world’s largest slums and also one of the most densely populated.
It’s estimated that between 800,000 to one million people live in an area of just 2.1 square kilometers (0.81 square miles).
Dharavi has an estimated population density of over 350,000 people per square km (over 800,000 people per square mile).
…and do so with another person! Yes, there are enough saunas in the country that would allow people to pair up and take a nationwide sauna.
Switzerland has enough fallout shelters to house every single resident. There are thousands of shelters in Swiss homes. In fact, by law, each person in the country is entitled to a place of shelter underground, calculated at one square meter per person.
No one is left out. There are thousands of public shelters available. In total, the European nation has enough bunkers to house around 8.6 million people.
Sources: (United States Census Bureau) (World Population Review) (TopTenz) (Facts.net) (National Geographic)
The world's most densely populated country (it's not China)
From slums to remote islands
LIFESTYLE People
The current official count of the global population stands at 8.2 billion. However, a new way of estimating rural populations has been discovered, and has revealed that we may have been vastly undercounting people who live in these areas.
Understanding the population of rural areas can be difficult, but there are also many surprises in cities, too. Some unassuming small places have a very high number of people per square mile/kilometer, while some populous cities are not as dense as they seem.Curious? Click through to learn some fascinating facts about population density.