Running Out Of Space

We all worry about the world running out of space for people, but is it really necessary?

Have you realized that if the entire world’s population were to gather at one place, and form a square formation with each person taking up a space of 1 square metre, the size of the square grid of people would be only 80 km long by 80 km wide.

Yup, that’s it.

80 km a side = 80 x 1000 m = 80,000 people
80,000 x 80,000 = 6,400,000,000 = 6400 million = 6.4 billion = approximately the world’s population.

Or to be precise, going by the estimated world population of 6,892,200,000 people (as per Wikipedia today), the square formation would take up space that is 83 km long by 83 km wide.

If we look at this in terms of miles,
assigning every person a space of 1 square yard,
the size of the grid would be 47.17 miles long by 47.17 miles wide.

(originally posted on a now-defunct blog sometime in 2007)