The vacant 1/3

January 13, 2014

The northernmost 1/3 of North America is home to less than 1 million people. The attached graphic shows perhaps a bit of colour where Anchorage (pop.~300,000) is located. Otherwise, at this scale the map shows a blank space.

• About 530 M people live in North America - a little over 7% of the world’s population.
• The population density of North America is about 28 people per sq.km. This assumes all land is habitable (not realistic)
• The population density of the land area of the world is about 48 people per sq.km.
• The population density of the land area north of 56 degrees latitude is about 0.147 people per sq.km. In other words northern 38% of the continent is 148 times less populated that the southern 62%.
• The three least populated areas in the north are northern BC, northern Manitoba and northern Quebec (Nunavik).
• The largest density and largest population by far is in Alaska. Second is northern Alberta.

 

Commentary

Obviously the cold climate is a big reason why the population of the far north is so low. Interestingly, the same latitudes in Europe and Asia (Russia) are significantly more densely populated than in North America.

Sources

• a)http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-13/where-world-do-people-live



• b)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth