The World’s Population Density Explored

If you are concerned that humanity is outgrowing the available space on this planet, you can relax. As it turns out, there is a lot more room available than you might otherwise think.

The entire population of the world (7.7 billion people, as of this writing, on August 4, 2019), could fit in the state of Texas. This would require a density of population equal to that of New York City.

The area of Texas is 268,581 square miles. New York City’s population density is 27,016.3 people per square mile. Granted, almost the entire state would be covered with a massive urban complex, but it would leave the rest of the world free to be used for whatever is needed to support the population.

Perhaps you don’t mind sharing your personal space with so many people. If so, we could adopt the population density of Paris, France. At 55,673 people per square mile, all of Earth’s inhabitants could fit in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

If you want to stretch out some more, London’s population density of 14,462 people per square mile would fill the states of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

See how the density level of a few well-known cities would house the world’s population in the graphic below, created when the world’s population was a wee bit smaller: 6.9 billion people.

Image courtesy of https://www.zdnet.com/article/could-7-billion-people-live-in-a-texas-sized-city/

While we’re on the subject, as long as we don’t care about having any personal space at all, you could take the entire population of the earth and fit us all in a half-mile long segment of the Grand Canyon. We would all be piled in on top of each other, but at least space is available.

If that isn’t a tight enough squeeze for you, read this to find out how to squeeze everyone into an even smaller area.

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