At the beginning of 2014, according to experts, the population was approximately 7.2 billion people. At the same time, people are extremely unevenly settled around the planet.
Most of the earthlings, about 90%, live in the northern hemisphere. Also, 80% of the population is concentrated in the eastern hemisphere, versus 20% in the western, while 60% of people are residents of Asia (on average - 109 people / km2). About 70% of the population is concentrated on 7% of the planet's territory. And 10-15% of the land is completely uninhabited territories - these are the lands of Antarctica, Greenland, etc.
Population density by country
There are countries in the world with both low and high rates of population density. The first group includes, for example, Australia, Greenland, Guiana, Namibia, Libya, Mongolia, Mauritania. The population density in them is no more than two people per square kilometer.
The most densely populated countries are located in Asia - China, India, Japan, Bangladesh, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and others. The average density in Europe is 87 people / km2, in America - 64 people / km2, in Africa, Australia and Oceania - 28 people / km2 and 2.05 people / km2, respectively.
States with a small area are usually very densely populated. These are, for example, Monaco, Singapore, Malta, Bahrain, Republic of Maldives.
Among the cities with the highest population density are Egyptian Cairo (36,143 people / km2), Chinese Shanghai (2,683 people / km2 in 2009), Pakistani Karachi (5,139 people / km2), Turkish Istanbul (6,521 people / km2)../km2), Japanese Tokyo (5,740 people / km2), Indian Mumbai and Delhi, Argentine Buenos Aires, Mexico City, the capital of Russia Moscow (10,500 people / km2), etc.
Reasons for uneven settlement
The uneven population of the planet is associated with various factors. First of all, these are natural and climatic conditions. Half of the earthlings live in lowlands, which make up less than a third of the land, and a third of people live from the sea at a distance of no more than 50 kilometers (12% of the land).
Traditionally, zones with unfavorable and extreme natural conditions (high mountains, tundra, deserts, tropics) were inactively populated.
Another factor is the rate of natural population growth due to the birth rate in different countries, in some countries it is very high, and in others it is extremely low.
And another important factor is the socio-economic conditions and the level of production in a particular country. For the same reasons, the density varies significantly within the countries themselves - in cities and rural areas. As a rule, the population density in cities is higher than in the countryside, and the highest - in the capitals.
