5.2 Populations and areas

Population densities

Figure J.1 shows the areas of various regions versus their populations. Diagonal lines on this diagram are lines of constant population density. Bangladesh, on the rightmost-but-one diagonal, has a population density of 1000 per square kilometre; India, England, the Netherlands, and Japan have population densities one third that: about 350 per km2. Many European countries have about 100 per km2. At the other extreme, Canada, Australia, and Libya have population densities of about 3 people per km2. The central diagonal line marks the population density of the world: 43 people per square kilometre. America is an average country from this point of view: the 48 contiguous states of the USA have the same population density as the world. Regions that are notably rich in area, and whose population density is below the average, include Russia, Canada, Latin America, Sudan, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia.

Of these large, area-rich countries, some that are close to Britain, and with whom Britain might therefore wish to be friendly, are Kazakhstan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Sudan.

Figure J.1: Populations and areas of countries and regions of the world. Both scales are logarithmic. Each sloping line identifies a population density; countries with highest population density are towards the lower right, and lower population densities are towards the upper left. These data are provided in tabular form on.

Figure J.2: Populations and areas of countries and regions of the world. Both scales are logarithmic. Sloping lines are lines of constant population density. This figure shows detail from figure J.1. These data are provided in tabular form.

Population densities of the continents. These data are displayed graphically in figures J.1 and J.2. Data are from 2005.

Figure J.4: Populations and areas of the States of America and regions around Europe.

Regions and their population densities. Populations above 50 million and areas greater than 5 million km2 are highlighted. These data are displayed graphically in figure J.1. Data are from 2005.