If all the buildings and trees were cleared out and every one just stood in a crowd?

This has come up in conversation occasionally in my life, when I claim that the entire world population, standing as one crowd, could probably fit inside whichever county (thats counTY, not counTRY) I happen to be in at the time.

There is always someone in the group who, without doing any math or looking at any figures, simply insists absolutely that this is impossible.

Consider Orange County, California:

WolframAlpha says OC is 2.04x10^9 square meters in area, and that the world population is 6.67 billion people.

I just read an article suggesting "four people per square meter" is a safe crowd density...and that was for people in the USA, and we're not the skinniest people.

With 4 people standing per square meter, over 8 billion people could crowd into a space the size of OC. Thus, the whole world could fit into that space, with room to spare.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=size+of+orange+county
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population
http://www.slate.com/id/2209135/

Perhaps a more important question would be to ask what significance could be attached to that fact?

More important questions might be to ask how much land area is required to support a single human in energy? How much land area is required to sufficiently dilute waste materials beyond toxic levels?

How long could people survive in such crowed conditions as four humans per square meter?

If the idea that this is supposed to imply is that the world isn't anywhere near 'over-populated' perhaps it's lacking some important details?

Maybe we should consider the following?

How many calories per day does an average human require? And what is the efficiency rate at extracting those calories from food sources?

Take those numbers and then ask how many square feet of sunlight would be required to produce that much energy? Then double that since the sun is only up half the time. Then view that as the 'true footprint' of a single living healthy human being. And that even assumes cloudless days and perfect growing conditions continuously and no technology.

I'd like to see what those calculations yield for a world of 6 billion people.

Then of course if we add in the technological energies a human uses that would skyrocket. Any human who drives a car, uses electricity, or heats with fossil fuels, obviously burns far more 'calories' than any human body itself could possibly burn. So with that tossed in all-of-a-sudden their 'energy footprint' balloons.

Packing humans together as sardines and ignoring what it takes to keep them alive might be an interesting number to look at for fun, but from a practical point of view it has no useful meaning.

Pardon my interruption, but I think it constitutes one hell of a start!

I just hope that they aren't serving chili or Taco Bell the day somebody actually tries to physically do a useless experiment like that! Might be a good idea to stay away from beer and big gulps also, but you know not everybody would think about that, so remember to wear boots!

Germany may be the size of Florida and it has over 80 million people in it! I thought I just add that in. See it is a commercial break or something.

BREWSTER COUNTY. Brewster County (L-7), the largest county in Texas, is located in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas, and is the site of Big Bend National Park, the largest park in the state.

As of the census of 2000, there were 8,866 people, 3,669 households, and 2,216 families residing in the county. The population density was 1 person per square mile (1/km²). There were 4,614 housing units at an average density of 1 per square mile (0/km²).

Brewster County comprises 6,169 square miles of largely rough and mountainous terrain, with elevations ranging from 1,700 to 7,825 feet above sea level; the latter elevation, the tenth highest in the state, is at Emory Peak. Most of Brewster County drains into the Rio Grande, although the northern part drains into the Pecos River. Soils are generally shallow and stony, with some loamy to sandy soils and clayey subsoils. Vegetation at lower elevations in the county is drought resistant; sparse grasses, desert shrubs such as ocotillo, lechuguilla, sotol, acacias, tarbrush, and creosote bush, some mesquite, and cactus predominate. At intermediate elevations vast grasslands occur in mountain basins; white oak, juniper, and piñon woodlands dominate the slopes. Douglas fir, aspen, Arizona cypress, maple, Arizona pine, oaks, and madrone are found at the higher elevations. The fauna in Brewster County includes the pronghorn antelope, mule deer, white-tail deer, bobcat, mountain lion, desert bighorn sheep, black bear, coyote, raccoon, badger, prairie dog, pack rat, kangaroo rat, skunk, ringtail cat, porcupine, jackrabbit, cottontail, golden eagle, roadrunner, quail, dove, rock wren, white-winged dove, mourning dove, Canyon Wren, painted bunting, zone-tailed black hawk, and Colima warbler.



so if 1 square mile = 2589988.110 m² then 1,039,952 people could stand in a square mile

if the county is 6,169 square miles then 6,415,463,888 people can stand in my county

so all the people in the world could fit in my county and still have room to stretch out

Abra,

I agree that it is important to exercise care regarding the significance one attaches to facts. There are a few fools out there, on both sides of the 'Is the world getting overpopulated?' fence, who give undue significance to the question 'how much area does it take to fit the actual world population'.

Some think that "Just because we got a ton of room for the actual people, there is no issue of 'overcrowding". Thats just wrong. You can take a look at what kind of infrastructure you use to support dense populations (that one was for you, wux), and see some severe overcrowding issues in many cities.

For the world as a whole, there are more important questions like "how much petroleum is being use per person per year, how many acres are needed to grow the food that person eats, how fast are we loosing fresh water from ancient reserves beneath Tucson", etc.

This little mental exercise puts all that in perspective: the space that people use has nothing to do with the space they occupy. (Bicycle riding vegetarians, generally, use a lot less acreage and petroleum). Personally, I think resource consumption (petroleum, grain, fresh water) are hugely important issues, and I'm a fan of voluntary population control. But first and foremost I'm a fan of accuracy and objectivity, and I must say a large quantity of my ecologically minded acquaintances have an embarrassing lack of ability to be objective and truth-oriented.

jacksonville FL is 26 billion sq feet--The intire population of this earth would fit with room to spare

I was going to comment--But can't. On the other hand Bicycle riding vegitarians?? They still need metal for there bikes--and fert. for there veg-es. wood for there houses and paper for there a$$'es. better if they just stop eating and go away maybe?? or something like that!!

Quietman, thanks for posting!


Artman,



Of you course you are correct Artman, hence the word "less". You did notice that word, right? Oh, and please take special notice of that word "generally".

It remains true that they generally use a lot less petroleum and acreage.


If you are interested in learning more on this topic, you might try calculating your own consumption, or your own carbon footprint, and such.