Population density

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

Aerial view of a large crowd of people gathered closely together on a sunlit surface, with long shadows cast behind them.

World map shaded by country to show population density per square mile, with darker reds indicating higher density in regions such as South Asia, East Asia, and Western Europe.

A line graph with red and blue shaded areas shows cyclical rises and falls in the populations of snowshoe hares and lynx from 1855 to 1925, illustrating how hare population peaks are followed by lynx population peaks. Small illustrations of a running snowshoe hare and a lynx appear above the graph.

Is overpopulation a problem?

A scatter plot graph shows that as population density increases, annual per capita petroleum use decreases. Cities in the United States have low density and high petroleum use, while cities in Europe and Asia, such as Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, have higher density and lower petroleum use. The graph is divided into colored regions representing the United States, Australia and Canada, Europe, and the Far East and Russia.

Population density: References & Edit History

More Articles On This Topic

Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

Teagan Wolter
Teagan Wolter is Associate Editor of Anthropology at Encyclopædia Britannica.

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

Article History

Type	Description	Contributor	Date
	Article title updated for style.	The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica	Nov 04, 2026
	Modified link of Web site: Biology LibreTexts - Population Demographics and Dynamics.	Grace Young	Nov 01, 2026
	Add new Web site: Scientific Reports - Population density as the attractor of business to the place.	Gloria Lotha	Jul 25, 2026
	Add new Web site: National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Human population density and reproductive health: a changing world needs endocrinology.	Gloria Lotha	Feb 03, 2026
	Add new Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Philosophical Transactions B - Population density and size facilitate interactive capacity and the rise of the state.	Gloria Lotha	Dec 26, 2025
	Add new Web site: BMC Ecology and Evolution - Breaking down population density into different components to better understand its spatial variation.	Aakanksha Gaur	Nov 01, 2025
	Add new Web site: IOPscience - IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science - The mapping population density in a sparsely populated region: a case study the Irkutsk Region (PDF).	Aakanksha Gaur	Sep 20, 2025
	Add new Web site: Frontiers - Frontiers in Environmental Science - Population Density: an underlying mechanism between road transportation and environmental quality.	Gloria Lotha	Aug 09, 2025
	Add new Web site: Academia - A Study of Population Density in Developing Countries (PDF).	Emily Rodriguez	Apr 17, 2025
	Corrected display issue.	Teagan Wolter	Mar 10, 2025
	Media added.	Teagan Wolter	Mar 10, 2025
	Add new Web site: CiteSeerX - A Population-Density Approach to Regional Spatial Structure.	Aakanksha Gaur	Feb 01, 2025
	Add new Web site: NOVA Open Publishing - Introduction to Cultural Geography - Population Density and Pyramids.	Yamini Chauhan	Nov 26, 2024
	Add new Web site: Biology LibreTexts - Population Demographics and Dynamics.	Gloria Lotha	Nov 21, 2024
	Media added.	Meg Matthias	Sep 13, 2024
	New article added.	Teagan Wolter	Sep 13, 2024