Posted on 04/17/2022 3:55:02 AM PDT by blam
If you wanted to capture over 55% of the global population inside a circle with a 4,000km radius, which city would you place at its epicenter?
In 2013, a post appeared on Reddit marking a circular area of the globe with “more people living inside this circle than outside of it.” The circle had a radius of 4,000 km (just under 2,500 miles) and was named the Valeriepieris circle after author Ken Myers’ username.
As Visual Capitalist’s Trixie Pacis details below, acknowledging that the Valeriepieris circle is not actually a circle (it was drawn on a two-dimensional map rather than a globe) and is based on data that has become outdated, mapmaker Alasdair Rae went digging and discovered what he calls The Yuxi Circle, the world’s most densely populated area.
Introducing the Yuxi Circle
Rae traced circles around 1,500 cities worldwide to find out how many people lived within a 4,000 km radius, just like the original Valeriepieris circle. He based his calculations on WorldPop data from 2020, based on a global population of 7.8 billion people.
Of the 1,500 circles that Rae made calculations for, 148 contained populations of 4 billion or more. He found many examples in Asia including in China, Myanmar (Mandalay), Laos (Vientiane), Bangladesh (Chattogram), India (Agartala), Bhutan (Thimpu), and Vietnam (Hanoi) to name a few.
But of them all, Yuxi, a city in the Yunnan province of China, has the largest population living within a 4,000 km radius: 4.32 billion.
Put another way? The circle encompasses over 55% of the world’s population, despite including desolate areas like the Taklamakan Desert, the Tibetan Plateau, Mongolia, and Southern Siberia.
Densely Populated Areas Around the Globe
Rae’s search for densely populated clusters also turned up notable circles beyond Asia. They surrounded cities like Cairo, Paris, and Mexico City.
Note: Keep in mind that the white lines on the flat maps are equidistant circles but will only look like circles when plotted on a globe.
Circling Hanoi yields a population of 4.27 billion (54% of the global population). It was the runner up city circle in Rae’s original search.
Circling Cairo yields a population of 2.29 billion. This circle reaches most of Europe while still containing populated areas of India, Pakistan, and Africa.
Comparatively, circling Paris yields a population of 1.19 billion. This Euro-centric circle contains large tracts of water and scarcely populated islands such as Iceland and Greenland.
Across the Atlantic, circling Mexico City yields a population of 0.73 billion. It’s significantly smaller than the other circles, as the total population in the Americas is concentrated in just three countries, the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil (not included in this circle).
It’s worth noting that the Valeriepieris circle also inspired other people to look at population density in different ways. In 2015, Danny Quah of the London School of Economics looked more closely at the Valeriepieris circle and was inspired to find the smallest circle with more people living inside of it than outside. He determined that a circle with a radius of 3,300 km centered near Mong Khet, Myanmar was “the world’s tightest cluster of people.”
While the Yuxi Circle contains the largest population using Rae’s approach as of early 2022, global populations are constantly changing. Who knows where the next Yuxi Circle will be?
Interest idea.....but let’s see, India with slightly over a billion souls, and China with well over a billion souls.....hmmmm...ya think 55% of the world’s population might live in an area encompassing those counties...?
Mark
That must be why the Himalayas are rising. All those folks on the edge of the plate are making it tilt.
Is that you, Hank?
India and China are in a sense pretty far away, because they have a few little hills in between called The Himalayas.
They won’t stop missiles flying over, but they are a major impediment to moving armies in order to conquer territory.
If humans evolved from Africa how did they become so densely concentrated in Asia? It has always seemed odd to me that in a world with slow transportation the dispersion of humans would occur as it has been postulated based on a few fossilized skulls.
Okay, but what if we read “densest” and “tightest” in other ways? Where’s the circle then?
Thought provoking indeed. Wonder what such a study would be historically? Has Sino-Asia always been the largest population?
Thanks for this post.
Europe used to be the most densely populated part of the world. In 1900 it had more people than China.
I’ve speculated that a nuclear exchange between India and China that killed a couple of billion people might be a net environmental gain.
El Salvador has the most population per square mile of any country in Latin America. Also, Mexico City has 30 million people. Statistics can be misleading.
When I moved from a more densely populated area in the east to the wide open west, I was struck by the realization of just how much room we have. Later I visited southern California and saw what an environmental hellhole it is. No wonder they think we are destroying the planet!
All that to say it is folly to think that our piddling population could make a dent in global emissions when that many people live in such close quarters on the other side of the planet.
Thanks to the potato that the Spanish brought back from Peru. All the potatoes(~ 2500 kinds) in the world have their origins in that region, Peru and Bolivia.
BTW, the population in Ireland was greater in 1840 than it is today because of the potato famine. About 1.5 million starved and 1.5 million migrated.
The Straits Of Malacca were closed until 7,000 years ago...then the oceans rose enough from the Ice Age melt to allow passage.
Sundaland was a perfect place to live during the Ice Age...humans must have thrived there.
I feel the same way when I look out the plane window when flying from Houston to SF. Nothing out there.
I've heard it said the whole population of the world could live inside of Texas if the houses were spaced, etc as in a normal middle class American sub-division.
Sign at the Texas, Louisiana border, El Paso 857 miles.
An English FReeper was bragging to me once about how big GB is...he said 610 miles from the south to the north. I told him about the Texas sign and mentioned that when you get to El Paso that you're still in Texas.
(He never said another word)
Luckily they aren’t spilling over to Guam as it might also tip over.
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