Good news for estimators everywhere, as the U.S. population has successfully shifted from "almost 300 million" to more-or-less exactly 300 million. Notwithstanding that large number, we remain a relatively sparsely populated land with about 31 people per square kilometer. Iraq, by contrast, has about 66 and there's virtually no chance the appalling bloodpath there will push them below our level. Germany has 232, South Korea 480, the Palestinian Territories 615.
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300 Million
17 Oct 2006 09:35 am
Comments (15)
eh, we're not that sparsely populated. We have the same problem places like China have. We have some places everyone wants to live, like NJ and RI, and a lot of places like ID and AZ that no one wants to live.
Northeast 343
Midwest 140
South 110
West 35
So, basically we have a European style density in on our coasts, and large swathes of empty land where people are lonely and conservative in the middle.
Everyone wants to live in Rhode Island? When did this happen?
Last week. Man, are you behind the times.
Ever since Cianci actually made Providence liveable. You know, before the whole going-to-prison thing.
NPR had a pretty good piece on this story on the last Science Friday. You can get the podcast on the internets.
Everyone wants to live in Rhode Island? Sure. But everyone wants to live in New Jersey??? Yikes!
Also worth noting from the Census this week, for the first time in our history less than half of the households are married-couple households. Yay, single people!
Are you counting Alaska when calculating density? The fact that the quality of life has declined in a large part due to increased population over the last 50 years cannot be waved away with misleading statistics of people per kilometer.
Quiddity, is it a fact? I like denser places; or maybe it's that I like places that are very dense, dense enough to support effective mass transit, walkable communities, and interesting cultural life. But if additional density comes from turning ruralities into exurbs that wouldn't do much for my quality of life. Of course these are my preferences but I'd be interested in statistics one way or another.
Sparsely populated? It is to laugh. USA 31 people per square k, Australia 2.7. That's not a sparse, _this_ is a sparse.
Well, my neighborhood is a lot denser than 31 humans per square km. And so is Matt's, I bet.
Bloodpath?
"Bloodpath" - it's like the opposite of the Middle East Road Map.
I'd just like to point out to those bashing Matt's usage of population-density numbers that, while it is true that population density varies over the nation as a whole, the same is true for both Iraq, Germany, and South Korea (I have no idea about the landscape of Palestine).
The US is sparsely populated compared to most other First and Second World countries, and to hear people complaining about quality-of-life issues because we now stand at 300+ million is just ridiculous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_population_density_map.PNG
tells the story.
I bet there is a whole branch of geographical science dedicated to studying the (fractal?) unevenness of population distributions. However, it doesn't sound sexy enough to get much publicity under normal conditions.
Comments closed October 31, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
i question the methodology used to come up with this 300M number.
i did a quick survey of the people i know, and could name roughly 100. using the 7 Degrees method, i calculate there must be at least 100,000,000,000,000 people in the US.
what is the Census bureau trying to do, by telling us the number is so much lower than it really is?
Posted by cleek | October 17, 2006 10:00 AM