Tuesday, March 6, 2012

High Population-Density Areas

A recent New York Times articled entitled "How Many People Can Manhattan Hold?" discussed the population and capacity of Manhattan. While only 1.6 million people call Manhattan home, population in the city more than doubles and may reach as high as 3.9 million during the weekday, and during special events like Thanksgiving Day Parade, may reach as high as 5 million. While Manhattan and New York City may easily be the densest place in the United States, how does it compare to other metropolises of the world?

Initial look at ranking charts reveals that predominantly Asian cities top the rankings for the most dense cities. However, comparison with other metropolises eclipses the fact that Manhattan's figure is much greater than that of New York City, and worldly comparisons usually take into account of the entire city proper. With over 8 million residents and spanning over 300 square miles, New York City has about 27,000 people / square mile. However when Manhattan is solely focused, the 1.6 million people in land area of around 23 square miles corresponds to about 70,000 people / square mile. That figure eclipses the population densities of metropolises like Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta. However, caution should be noted that while Manhattan is simply a dense enclave of New York City with population around 1.6 million, the figures for the Indian metropolises include the entire city proper that has 5 to 10 million people.

A discussion of high population density cannot go unfinished without mentioning Kowloon Walled City. A former Chinese garrison area and a residential area in Hong Kong before demolished in 1993, Kowloon Walled City had about 33,000 people living in the 6.5 acre area, corresponding to over 3 million people / square mile. At that density, 65 million people could be jammed into Manhattan. Even if "the current streets and parks were left intact," about half of that, or the population of California could fit into Manhattan.

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