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10 Maps That Prove the World Is Far From Running Out of Space

Based on data from NASA / SEDAC, this map shows how Italy's population is distributed -- half lives in the densely-packed purple areas (8% of the land), half lives in the sparse grey areas (92% of the land).

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Based on data from NASA / SEDAC, this map shows how Italy's population is distributed -- half lives in the densely-packed purple areas (8% of the land), half lives in the sparse grey areas (92% of the land).

The map is the latest addition to a long-running string of population maps tweeted out by Conrad Hackett, a Pew Research demographer with a very interesting and very popular Twitter feed. The maps show how and where people are concentrated in different regions of world, including contributions from some great data visualizers as well as a few of my own.

It's no surprise that people are not evenly spread out across the Earth. But seeing the population concentrations mapped out visually can be quite striking.

The World

On a global level,
50% of the world's population lives in just 1% of its land
.

The map below shows the world's population density from another perspective. Only 5% of the world lives in the entire blue area. For comparison, the same number of people live in the small red area (bonus points if you can name the two countries it covers).

Australia

Australia may be the country with the most extreme population concentration in the world. Physically, it is about the same size as the United States. But as this map by reddit user
jnd-au
shows, half of Australia's 23 million people live in just a few densely packed specs.

United States

This map of the United States was made by
Jishai Evers
of
of dadaviz
, a site that put out some great data visualizations before being acquired by
Vocativ
late last year.

Of the United States' 3,142 counties, just 144 account for half of the population.

Spain

As you can see in the
maps here
, Western Europe's population is distributed relatively evenly compared to the rest of the world. But
Spain
is a bit of an
exception
. 14% of Spaniards live in Greater Madrid, smack dab in the center of the country.

France

This map of France comes by way of
Mathieu Dehlinger
of
francetvinfo
. It shows not only the 50% / 50% population split, but the full range of possible breakdowns.

North Africa

Unsurprisingly, the Sahara Desert has one of the lowest population densities on the planet. Nearly
half the population of North Africa
lives along the banks of the Nile River.

Turkey

This map by
Aron Strandberg
, shows the population concentration of Turkey. 50% of the population lives in the black regions, 50% lives in the yellow regions.

Canada

The 49th parallel is traditionally thought of as the border between the U.S. and Canada. Oddly, most Canadians live far below it.
50% of Canada's population
lives in this red area, which is at about the same latitude as Oregon.

You can find these and many other population density maps on Conrad's Twitter feed, many connected to the tweet below. If you have any suggestions for other parts of the world whose population would be interesting to see visualized like the maps above, feel free to share your thoughts.

The post originally appeared on Metrocosm

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