The Global Extremes of Population Density

July 22, 2015

Only 5% of the world’s population lives in the entire blue region. For comparison, the same number of people live in the small red region.

World population density

Update: What this map looks like as an equal area projection, and why it would have been a poor choice

Believe it or not, it’s true. There are just as many people living in the small red area as there are living in all the blue areas combined.

This is a modified version of a map from reddit user Ibisdigitalmedia. When I first came across the original map, via the awesome Twitter feed of @NinjaEconomics, I was skeptical, so I went through and checked the numbers.

The original map turned out not to be entirely correct (the red region covered only about 3% of the world population), so I made this one from scratch based on the same concept.

 

Notice that the blue region covers more than just uninhabited deserts and tundras. It encompasses several prominent, powerful countries, including Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.

Can you identify the two countries within the red region?

The table below shows the full list of territories covered by each region, along with their 2014 populations.

greater tokyo population via US cities

For a related post, see: How Many U.S. Cities Can You Fit Inside Greater Tokyo?

For it’s size, Tokyo has the highest population density in the world.

 

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Blue region

CountryRegionPopulation
LithuaniaAll3,173,000
EstoniaAll1,338,000
NorwayAll4,985,000
SwedenAll9,437,000
FinlandAll5,408,000
LatviaAll2,210,000
AustraliaAll22,280,000
FijiAll828,046
KazakhstanAll16,137,000
MongoliaAll2,809,000
New CaledoniaAll266,000
Norfolk IslandAll2,169
New ZealandAll4,436,000
Papua New GuineaAll7,440,000
TurkmenistanAll5,411,000
Republic of the CongoAll3,609,851
Central African RepublicAll4,191,429
GabonAll1,597,000
OmanAll3,110,000
BotswanaAll2,068,000
SomaliaAll10,295,000
NamibiaAll2,352,000
ZambiaAll14,440,000
GreenlandAll57,475
CanadaAll35,010,000
UruguayAll3,412,000
IcelandAll347,000
BelizeAll335,000
Libyan Arab JamahiriyaAll5,918,217
MauritaniaAll3,623,000
SurinameAll540,000
GuyanaAll757,000
French GuianaAll250,377
Western SaharaAll507,160
MaliAll14,478,000
NigerAll18,124,000
Saudi ArabiaAll28,123,000
BoliviaAll10,610,000
ParaguayAll6,844,000
ChadAll12,620,000
IrelandAll4,804,000
SvalbardAll2,642
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)All3,000
VanuatuAll267,000
Solomon IslandsAll472,419
KiribatiAll102,351
GalapagosAll25,000
BahamasAll360,000
French Southern and Antarctic LandsAll0
South Georgia South Sandwich IslandsAll0
PalauAll20,918
MicronesiaAll103,549
GuamAll165,124
Northern Mariana IslandsAll53,855
GreeceCrete620,000
CyprusAll911,000
FranceCorsica322,000
United StatesAlaska736,732
United StatesWyoming584,153
United StatesMontana1,023,579
United StatesNorth Dakota739,482
United StatesSouth Dakota853,175
United StatesIdaho1,634,464
United StatesNebraska1,881,503
United StatesUtah2,942,902
United StatesKansas2,904,021
RussiaNorthwestern Federal District13,583,800
RussiaFar Eastern Federal District6,291,900
RussiaSiberian Federal District19,254,300
RussiaUral Federal District12,082,700
ChinaQinghai5,626,722
ChinaTibet3,002,166
BrazilRoraima496,936
BrazilAmazonas3,873,743
BrazilMato Grosso3,224,357
BrazilAcre790,101
BrazilAmapá750,912
BrazilTocantins1,496,880
BrazilPará8,073,924
BrazilRondônia1,748,531
BrazilMato Grosso do Sul2,619,657
ArgentinaCatamarca367,820
ArgentinaChaco1,053,466
ArgentinaChubut506,668
ArgentinaCorrientes993,338
ArgentinaFormosa527,895
ArgentinaJujuy672,260
ArgentinaLa Pampa316,940
ArgentinaLa Rioja331,847
ArgentinaMendoza1,741,610
ArgentinaNeuquén550,334
ArgentinaRío Negro633,374
ArgentinaSalta1,215,207
ArgentinaSan Juan680,427
ArgentinaSan Luis431,588
ArgentinaSanta Cruz272,524
ArgentinaSantiago del Estero896,461
ArgentinaTierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur126,190
ChileMagallanes y la Antártica Chilena159,152
ChileAysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo98,413
ChileLos Lagos785,169
SudanWestern Equatoria740,000
SudanWestern Bahar el Ghazal220,000
SudanNorthern Darfur1,600,000
SudanWestern Darfur1,660,000
SudanSouthern Darfur2,960,000
SudanNorthern State610,000
EgyptNew Valley219,615

 

Red region

CountryRegionPopulation
BangladeshAll172,019,000
IndiaBihar99,000,000
IndiaJharkhand32,000,000
IndiaWest Bengal90,320,000

 

get the data buttonIf you want to work through the data yourself, you can download it here in CSV format.
 

Tokyo Population vs US Cities
Tokyo’s population in U.S. cities
Equal Area Map of World Population Density
Population density map redux

 

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Max Galka

I'm an NYC-based entrepreneur (my newest project: Blueshift) and adjunct instructor at UPenn. I'm fascinated by data visualization and the ways that data is transforming our understanding of the world. I spend a lot of time with my face buried in Excel, and when I find something interesting I write about it here and also as a Guardian Cities and Huffington Post contributor.
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  • http://gravatar.com/kuritan Kuri-tan

    Would be better with an equal-area map projection, but still a valid point.

    • http://metrocosm.com/author/mgalka/ Max Galka

      I wrote up another post that addresses this point. http://metrocosm.com/more-population-maps/

      If you still think equal area is better, would love to hear your thoughts.

  • Commenter

    What KURI-TAN says, but interesting regardless!

  • Ruth Thorpe

    Would it hurt to wear a love glove, fucking Bangladeshis?

    • Arvind

      Hello Ruth, please educate the Bangladeshis about the benefits of condoms, women’s education and population control first. Then pass judgement on their present state.

  • evaddict

    This map doesn’t actually show much useful information. It isn’t making any worthwhile comparison. Vast segments of the blue area are mostly uninhabited for a reason – Siberia, the Canadian tundra, the rain forest, glacial ice, and desert which are mostly uninhabitable, or should not be inhabited for environmental reasons. The selection is somewhat arbitrary – where is Antarctica if we’re looking at low population densities? Basically, what is the point being made? What do we learn from this except for the fact that some places have very few people and others have a large number? Is there an implied connection with the relative wealth of the areas? Is there a suggestion that we as a species should do something differently?

    • Anon

      It gives visual perspective, which is great for some learning types, or use as supporting material for more specific data, for presentations, etc. It is ale eye opening to the vast sums of people who are uneducated, or to children.

      It reminds us of some of the following facts, but not limited to:
      -How big the world is
      -how dense we can pack human population if needed (This is very relevant to some of Australia’s approaching environmental problems).
      -The fact that the geographic distribution of human population is skewed.
      -An opening image to discussion on how environments and geography effect human settlement
      -Perhaps if you went through the numbers, the sample size might be big enough to find a correlation between some more data on cultural differences and this data on population distribution. Maybe certain cultural norms more heavily influence density than geographic or environments /shrug.

      I could keep going for ages. Just because data doesn’t have a specific purpose doesn’t make it useless or any less interesting. It’s only a bad thing if it is used misleadingly towards a particular end. IN this case, its just “hey check this out, it’s kind of cool and think of all the questions it poses for further research.” Of course, there are swathes of research on this out there already, but some people find it fun to do their own.

  • http://gravatar.com/perfectatdat perfectatdat

    I belong to that red part of the world in India. But honestly I don’t find it crowded or may be I have gotten used to it or maybe since I have never been to the blue regions I don’t know how it will be like to have less people around.

    • http://metrocosm.com/author/mgalka/ Max Galka

      I suppose it depends on which part you live in. As a whole, the red area has about 1,000 people per square km, which is not very dense compared to a typical city (NYC has about 10,000 per sq km).

      On the other hand, Dhaka, the densest part, has 50,000 people per sq km.

  • Vyctorya

    How cool How about a global map of /
    • All criminal activity & places with highest concentration +
    • Male genetic mutations & places with highest frequency of them +
    • Males diagnosed with mental disorders & places with highest concentration?

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  • Sofia Manolis

    At the list of countries (blue region) you have made a mistake, the island of Crete is not an independent country, is a region of Greece.
    So Country: Greece, Region: Crete
    Thanks

    • http://metrocosm.com/author/mgalka/ Max Galka

      You are correct. I could have done a more exact job of distinguishing countries and regions. As I look at it, there are several others that should not be there either. Thanks.

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  • Michiel

    Max, can you explain why the Netherlands is in the white area? It is listed as 30th most densely populated country on wikipedia. Thanks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

    • http://metrocosm.com/author/mgalka/ Max Galka

      Sure. 90% of people in the world are in the white area. The blue and red regions are only for the very extremes. The Netherlands is dense, but not within the top 5%.

      Also, to build the map I did not just look at countries. I also looked at specific regions / provinces within the countries. So, even though India as a whole is less dense than the Netherlands, the three Indian states within the red region are far denser.

  • Rifat Bin Reza

    I reside in Bangladesh. I would like to know where did you find the exact population of our country. As far as i know, from our governmental source that we have about 160 million people.

  • Bobakka

    how cool
    – how about a map of all women who vote on the more handsome candidate and never stopped wars as they promised when they fought for women’s suffrage
    – a map of all women who reward psychotic powerful men with sex
    – a map of all idiotic women who don’t understand that they can only be as much of a woman as much men think they are one. (Just as much something is as sweet as people taste it sweet or something could be only as lethal as easily people die because of it. Logically there is no other possible definition of women as it is related to men. Apart from that they can only be like a “generic human” or a standard mold of a genderless human.)
    – a map of all areas where it is not needed to take even basic biology course to get into gender “studies”

  • Philippe

    Seeing this just scares me so much knowing that in Bangladesh 20% of the land lies under 1m high and 60% under 5m. Added to this the Bay of Bengal funnels typhoons and waves up that way. And 5% of the worlds population lives in this area. I fear a disaster that would make the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami pale in comparison is all too likely. I just hope we will have implemented an effective series of solution the day when and not if this occurs.

    • http://metrocosm.com/author/mgalka/ Max Galka

      You’re right. I used to build hurricane models, this area is at risk of a massive disaster.

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  • Charles Berger

    Here’s another on population density, comparing 20 areas of very high density with 20 areas of very low.

    • http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

      Interesting one. Where is this from?

      • Charles Berger

        That’s a handcrafted, artisanal exemplar of cartography you’re lookin’ at, good sir. To wit: I did it myself.

        Data is painstakingly compiled from… um, Wikipedia mostly, but I did a lot of delving into 3rd order administrative subdivisions. Wiki is fine for some countries (eg US counties, Chinese prefectures) but not for most. Districts of India is useful…

        Using 3rd order administrative subdivisions rather than the more commonly used 1st or 2nd really allows one to draw out the areas of maximum and minimum density.

        • http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

          Nice work.

          This one only goes to 2nd order subdivisions. 3rd is just too much of a pain to work with. For this one of Japan, I must have spent three hours finding the 3rd order population data.

          Some day I’ll make my way to Landscan data, 1km x 1km resolution population counts.

          • Charles Berger

            Love the Tokyo map! But wait a minute, aren’t you exaggerating by shoving US cities proper into a Japanese full metropolitan area?

            I feel your pain on using 3d order divisions. For me, this is a strictly a hobby, so I don’t mind getting lost in the minutiae, it’s like a treasure hunt. Going to do some inequality maps next, talk about a data minefield.

            I’ve got a few other maps on facebook https://www.facebook.com/charles.berger.146

          • http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

            Have had more than a few debates on that topic, and they are pretty justified when looking at the map on its own. In the context of the post I think it will make more sense. http://metrocosm.com/how-many-u-s-cities-can-you-fit-inside-tokyo/

            Cool maps. For the city, my guess would be something in China, more big cities there than regions on the map.

          • Charles Berger

            Yes, I see now, having read the post.

            Also, no turkish delight for you. The answer is Osaka…

          • http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

            FYI – You might appreciate this one. Just posted. http://metrocosm.com/world-population-split-in-half-map/

    • http://spiritualmeanderings.wordpress.com/ Sentinel

      And a lovely map projection, a tip of the hat to you sir!

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  • http://joecorrao.blogspot.com/ Joe Corrao

    who cares

    • Albert Ruiz

      Do you always take the time to leave a comment on web pages you don’t care about?

      • http://joecorrao.blogspot.com/ Joe Corrao

        no this time I saw a special opportunity.

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