What area on Earth will the entire population of the planet occupy, gathered shoulder to shoulder?

  • Dec 10, 2020
Population (Photo source: https://runews24.ru/society/)
Population (Photo source: https://runews24.ru/society/)

Good afternoon, dear guests and subscribers of my channel!

I understand perfectly well that under no circumstances will it be possible to concentrate the entire population of the globe in one place and this state of affairs is unrealistic, but this article gives an understanding of how negligible the ratio of population to area sushi planet earth.

If you have read the novel "The Little Prince" by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery, then most likely you remember this quote:

Quote from the story "The Little Prince"
Quote from the story "The Little Prince"

This story was written in 1942, when the population of the planet really was more than 2 billion people.

Today, according to open sources, the population of our planet is slightly more than 7 793 970 000 person. Indeed, the figure is impressive. How much space on Earth will a crowd of 7,8 billion people?

To answer this question, we need to understand the value of the area occupied by a person on the earth's cover, for which it is required to make its projection onto the surface of the Earth. Anthropometry will help us here.

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Anthropometry is the main method of studying human bodies to establish the characteristics of the physical structure. It is used to determine body age, race, etc.

According to the study, the average person measures from shoulder to shoulder - 500 mm. with a foot length of 290 mm., thus, the projection on the ground and the area occupied by a person is 0.5 * 0.29 = 0.145 sq.m. or 0.000000145 sq. km.

Fragment of anthropometrics - illustration by the author

Now, in one action, we can find the total area occupied by all people standing closely to each other:

0.000000145 * 7 793 970 000 = 1130 sq. Km.

Yes, this is an approximate result. A person needs a small degree of freedom. But the deviation from the obtained result will not go beyond 5-7%. The area of ​​1130 sq. Km is equivalent to the area of ​​a square with sides - 33.5 km. In other words, you can drive a car around the entire population of the world around the perimeter of the square in one hour!!! And its perimeter is only 33.5 * 4 = 134 km. And there is no deception here, it really is.

If we take the percentage of the occupied territory by people of the whole world and the land area of ​​our planet, which is 149,939,063,133 sq. Km, then 7.8 billion. people occupy only 0,000753 % all over the land.

Of course, you should draw conclusions, the task of my article was to show that by bringing the entire population together, shoulder to the shoulder - this territory does not take up a lot of land space, of course, relative to the scale of our Earth.

There are not so many of us.

"Friendship unites people much more than love."
Marlene Dietrich

Thanks for attention!

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