However, reddit user 1337spb did the math and showed that you could fit all of the world’s 7.26 billion people in a circle with a diameter of just 50km (31 miles).
London’s M25 Motorway (an orbital highway around London), in contrast, has an average diameter of between 64 and 80km (40-50 miles). Plenty of space to fit the world’s 7 billion people.
While anti-immigration activists would obviously be horrified at such an outcome, XKCD points out that there are far more practical reasons why this would be a bad idea. Mainly, it would be next to impossible for most people to get out alive.
For similar types of though experiments have a look at:
- What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
- Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Questions (New Scientist)
- Question Everything: 132 science questions – and their unexpected answers (New Scientist)
The map above is now a bit out of date, but you could fit the entire world’s population into El Salvador:
Did you know that the entire world’s population could fit inside El Salvador?
If we gathered all 8.26 billion people on Earth and placed them within El Salvador’s borders, each person would have just 2.55 square meters of space, roughly a 1.6-meter-by-1.6-meter square, barely enough to stand in.
This calculation comes from dividing El Salvador’s total area, 21,041 km², by the current global population. It’s a theoretical exercise, of course, but a striking one: it shows just how small humanity really is compared to the vastness of the planet we inhabit.
We may be billions, but we still occupy only a tiny fraction of the Earth’s available space.
Have any thoughts on any of this? Leave your comments below:
Matt says
That green dot is most definitely not where London is… come on, simple geography!
FlameCranium says
This fascinating and even brilliant observation belies the real problems of opening borders to accept refugees, migrants, and illegals: Housing, educating, feeding, and generally assimilating them into a culture with which they are usually unfamiliar, often hostile. The crush of unrealized expectations rarely ends well.
SonOfTheIsles says
London can have them. At least I’ll know where they all are. They’ll soon be at each other’s throat and the population problem will soon sort itself out. London will be empty.
I will join the farmers and energy/resource engineers required to remain outside.
Dave says
It’s not because you COULD make every country as densely populated as, let’s say, Bangladesh, that you SHOULD do it.
L says
Of course there is no “overpopulation”. The issue, as you brought it up, is the agenda of mongrelizing European nations with the dark savages of the world.
Why do you reckon the population of the dark savages has multiplied in the past century? Its not “progress”, it is by design. Financial design.
Alain Terrieur says
How much space does it take in Covid situation when everybody needs to stay 6 feet apart?
Phoebe says
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
– Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
Tom says
Everybody I know is having maybe. One kid?? Once people are educated Population growth will stop..,,?thank godvvwe tradhedvthis earth enough
John Cartwright says
Strange idea of “comfortable”