This Map of the Global Population Will Make You Rethink What You Knew About the World
There are almost eight billion people in the world (7.6 to be exact). Over half live in Asia, with more than 2 billion people in China and India alone. The map below, posted to Reddit by user AppleBiryani, divides the globe into ten sections, each containing 10% of the world’s population.
After looking at this map closely, here are some surprising facts we found:
- Nearly all of North America and about half of South America fit into one section.
- If you’re in the Western Hemisphere, no matter how cramped or busy your city might feel, you actually have far more breathing room than those in the Eastern Hemisphere.
- North America, including Central America, has a population of 544 million and South America has 400 million inhabitants, bringing the total population of the Americas to less than one billion people. Asia has more 4.5 billion inhabitants (the two largest cities in the world are in Asia: 30 million people live in Tokyo, and 22 million residents living in New Delhi).
- China makes up at least a small part of six of the ten total slices while Africa’s one billion residents are part of four.
Redditors took to the comments to propose a number of potential variations to this map. ”I’d be interested to see the horizontal compliment, since that would be tied closer to temperature,” said Redditor Fergy80.
Crucial_Contributor brought up a valid point, noting that, “Many of the worlds more sparsely populated places end up in the narrow stripes since population density is largely spread horizontally. Horizontal stripes would be interesting to see too.” A good point, since the vast majority of the world’s population lives above the equator.