The world population surpassed eight billion people in 2022, having doubled from its figure less than 50 years previously. Looking forward, it is projected that the world population will reach nine billion in 2038, and 10 billion in 2060, but it will peak around 10.3 billion in the 2080s before it then goes into decline. Regional variations The global population has seen rapid growth since the early 1800s, due to advances in areas such as food production, healthcare, water safety, education, and infrastructure, however, these changes did not occur at a uniform time or pace across the world. Broadly speaking, the first regions to undergo their demographic transitions were Europe, North America, and Oceania, followed by Latin America and Asia (although Asia's development saw the greatest variation due to its size), while Africa was the last continent to undergo this transformation. Because of these differences, many so-called "advanced" countries are now experiencing population decline, particularly in Europe and East Asia, while the fastest population growth rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, the roughly two billion difference in population between now and the 2080s' peak will be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, which will rise from 1.2 billion to 3.2 billion in this time (although populations in other continents will also fluctuate). Changing projections The United Nations releases their World Population Prospects report every 1-2 years, and this is widely considered the foremost demographic dataset in the world. However, recent years have seen a notable decline in projections when the global population will peak, and at what number. Previous reports in the 2010s had suggested a peak of over 11 billion people, and that population growth would continue into the 2100s, however a sooner and shorter peak is now projected. Reasons for this include a more rapid population decline in East Asia and Europe, particularly China, as well as a prolonged development arc in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The research on life expectancy in countries takes the spotlight in the notebook's machine learning model. Substantial data analysis and predictive algorithms are used to uncover the reasons causing differences in longevity among countries. With the aid of strong statistical tools, valuable insights into the complex link between healthcare, socioeconomic factors, and life expectancy are sought |Description|Column| |:------:|:--------:| |Country under study|Country| |year|Year| |Status of the country's development|Status| |Population of country|Population| |Percentage of people finally one year old who were immunized against hepatitis B|Hepatitis B| |The number of reported measles cases per 1000 people|Measles| |Percentage of 1-year-olds immunized against polio|Polio| |Percentage of people finally one year old who were immunized against diphtheria|Diphtheria| |The number of deaths caused by AIDS of the last 4-year-olds who were born alive per 1000 people|HIV/AIDS| |The number of infant deaths per 1000 people|infant deaths| |he number of deaths of people under 5 years old per 1000 people|under-five deaths| |The ratio of government medical-health expenses to total government expenses in percentage|Total expenditure| |Gross domestic product|GDP| |The average body mass index of the entire population of the country|BMI| |Prevalence of thinness among people 19 years old in percentage|thinness 1-19 years| |Liters of alcohol consumption among people over 15 years old|Alcohol| |The number of years that people study|Schooling| |Country life expectancy|Life expectancy [target variable]|

Population, female (% of total population) in World was reported at 49.72 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. World - Population, female (% of total) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

The "Forest Proximate People" (FPP) dataset is one of the data layers contributing to the development of indicator #13, “number of forest-dependent people in extreme poverty,” of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) Global Core Set of forest-related indicators (GCS). The FPP dataset provides an estimate of the number of people living in or within 1 kilometer of forests (forest-proximate people) for the year 2019 with a spatial resolution of 100 meters at a global level.

For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L., Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: a new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022 report. Rome, FAO.

Contact points:

Maintainer: Leticia Pina

Distributor: Sarah E., Castle

Data lineage:

The FPP data are generated using Google Earth Engine. Forests are defined by the Copernicus Global Land Cover (CGLC) (Buchhorn et al. 2020) classification system’s definition of forests: tree cover ranging from 15-100%, with or without understory of shrubs and grassland, and including both open and closed forests. Any area classified as forest sized ≥ 1 ha in 2019 was included in this definition. Population density was defined by the WorldPop global population data for 2019 (WorldPop 2018). High density urban populations were excluded from the analysis. High density urban areas were defined as any contiguous area with a total population (using 2019 WorldPop data for population) of at least 50,000 people and comprised of pixels all of which met at least one of two criteria: either the pixel a) had at least 1,500 people per square km, or b) was classified as “built-up” land use by the CGLC dataset (where “built-up” was defined as land covered by buildings and other manmade structures) (Dijkstra et al. 2020). Using these datasets, any rural people living in or within 1 kilometer of forests in 2019 were classified as forest proximate people. Euclidean distance was used as the measure to create a 1-kilometer buffer zone around each forest cover pixel. The scripts for generating the forest-proximate people and the rural-urban datasets using different parameters or for different years are published and available to users. For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L., Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: a new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022. Rome, FAO.

References:

Buchhorn, M., Smets, B., Bertels, L., De Roo, B., Lesiv, M., Tsendbazar, N.E., Herold, M., Fritz, S., 2020. Copernicus Global Land Service: Land Cover 100m: collection 3 epoch 2019. Globe.

Dijkstra, L., Florczyk, A.J., Freire, S., Kemper, T., Melchiorri, M., Pesaresi, M. and Schiavina, M., 2020. Applying the degree of urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation. Journal of Urban Economics, p.103312.

WorldPop (www.worldpop.org - School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton; Department of Geography and Geosciences, University of Louisville; Departement de Geographie, Universite de Namur) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, 2018. Global High Resolution Population Denominators Project - Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1134076). https://dx.doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00645

Online resources:

GEE asset for "Forest proximate people – 1km cutoff distance (100-m resolution)"

Population, male in World was reported at 4093749402 Persons in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. World - Population, male - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on September of 2025.

Climate change is projected to cause extensive plant range shifts, and in many cases such shifts already are underway. Most long-term studies of range shifts measure emergent changes in species distributions but not the underlying demographic patterns that shape them. To better understand species’ elevational range shifts and their underlying demographic processes, we use the powerful approach of rephotography, comparing historical (1978-82) and modern (2015-16) photographs taken along a 1000 m elevational gradient in theColorado Desert of Southern California. This approach allowed us to track demographic outcomes for 4263 individual plants of 11 long-lived, perennial species over the past ~36 years. All species showed an upward shift in mean elevation (average = 45 m), consistent with observed increasing temperature and severe drought in the region. We found that varying demographic processes underlaid these elevational shifts, with some species showing higher recruitment and some showing higher survival with increasing elevation. Species with faster life history rates (higher background recruitment and mortality rates) underwent larger elevational shifts. Our findings emphasize the importance of demography and life history in shaping range shift responses and future community composition, as well as the sensitivity of desert systems to climate change despite the typical ‘slow motion’ population dynamics of perennial desert plants. Methods We utilized photos originally taken by Dr. Wilbur Mayhew between 1977 and 1982 (Mayhew 1981), which we digitized from 35 mm slides stored at Philip L. Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center (doi:10.21973/N3V66D). We relocated permanently marked sites where historical photos had been taken and rephotographed them using a Canon 5D Mark II camera and tripod in 2015 and 2016. We took one additional set of photos in April 2017 after the end of a multi-year drought, so that we could distinguish dormant from dead individuals of two drought-deciduous species (brittlebush, Encelia farinosa and white bursage, Ambrosia dumosa). We approximated the original view of the original photos as closely as possible in modern photos. For each photo view, we chose a single historical and modern photo for analysis based on resolution, contrast and coloration. The mean timespan between paired historical and modern photos was 36 years. We perfected the alignment between the paired historical and modern photos in Photoshop by making one photo semi-transparent, then rotating and resizing it while maintaining original aspect ratios. Data extraction We extracted data on 11 perennial species that appeared in 5+ sites. We extracted data from the photos in ArcGIS, arranging the paired photos as map layers. We created polygons to delimit a survey area close enough to the camera to identify species; these polygons serve as the “sites” in our subsequent analysis. In some cases, we collected data on larger-bodied or particularly conspicuous species, such as ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) and creosote (Larrea tridentata), in a larger area including locations farther from the camera than for smaller, less conspicuous species. We recorded whether each plant underwent recruitment (absent historical, alive modern), mortality (alive historical, dead modern) or survival (alive both). We excluded plants that were dead in the historical period or with main stems outside the site polygon. In some cases we consulted other historical and modern photos of the same site to determine species identity or assess whether an individual was alive. We counted and measured clusters of agave (Agave deserti) and Mojave yucca (Yucca schidigera) as single individuals. Rarely, we may have misidentified pygmy cedar (Peucephyllum schottii) for creosote where these species co-occur on steep slopes, since they have similar morphology and are difficult to distinguish from a distance. We measured individual relative change in plant size by measuring the height (perpendicular to the ground) and width (the largest horizontal extent of the plant perpendicular to the camera, i.e. canopy width) of surviving plants in both time periods, using the ruler tool in ArcGIS and focusing on woody biomass. When dead agave rosettes were surrounded by live rosettes, we did not include the width that was dead if it was >20% the total width. We calculated the relative change in height of each plant as (H1–H0) / H0, where H indicates plant height and the subscripts 0 and 1 indicate the historical and modern period, respectively. We used an equivalent equation for relative change in width. For some species at some sites, we could not track the fate of individuals between the two time periods. This most often occurred for narrow-bodied and relatively short-lived species (e.g. teddy bear cholla, Cylindropuntia bigelovii) in photo pairs that were difficult to perfectly align, thereby making it difficult to tell whether plants either survived, or died and were replaced by recruits. It also occurred when a large plant died and a new plant “appeared” in a spot that was previously hidden, such that we were unable to determine whether the second plant was a recruit or a surviving plant. We therefore designated two site types for each species: “trackable” sites – those where we could track the fate of at least one third of individuals of a given species over time, and “count-only” sites – those where we could track fewer than one third of individuals, and instead only counted individuals. Count-only sites were retained for analyses of mean elevation shifts but not demographic rates. Geophysical data We used Google Earth Pro “ground level view” to draw polygons matching the extent of the site polygons outlined in the photos. To do so, we first “stood” at the camera’s locality and angle, then used corresponding features (e.g. washes, large creosote, hills) to find the exact site, and finally dropped pins to mark polygon vertices. We used these polygons to extract data on each site’s size, as well as its mean elevation, aspect, slope and annual solar radiation (“insolation”) using USGS NED Contiguous US 1/3 arc-second digital elevation model (2013) in ArcGIS. We took the cosine of aspect to create linear values ranging from -1 (South) to 1 (North). Additional details Additional details on how these data were collected and processed can be found in the Methods and Supplementary Materials of Skikne et al. 2024. Contrasting demographic processes underlie uphill shifts in a desert ecosystem.

The "Tree Proximate People" (TPP) dataset provides an estimate of the number of people living in or within 1 kilometer of trees outside forests (forest-proximate people) for the year 2019 with a spatial resolution of 100 meters at a global level. Trees outside forests are defined as areas classified as agricultural lands with at least 10% tree cover.

For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L., Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: a new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022 report. Rome, FAO.

Contact points:

Maintainer: Leticia Pina

Maintainer: Sarah E., Castle

Data lineage:

The TPP data are generated using Google Earth Engine. Trees outside forests (TOFs) are defined by the Copernicus Global Land Cover (CGLC) (Buchhorn et al. 2020) fractional cover data layer using a minimum of 10% tree cover on agricultural lands. Any area classified as land with TOFs sized ≥ 1 ha in 2019 was included in this definition. Lands classified as forests in CGLC were excluded from the analysis. Agricultural lands were defined using the FAO-LCCS2 land use classification layer from MODIS Land Cover (MCD12Q1.006). Croplands were defined as the total of three classifications: 1) “Herbaceous Croplands”: dominated by herbaceous annuals (<2m) with at least 60% cover and a cultivated fraction >60%, 2) “Natural Herbaceous/Croplands Mosaics”: mosaics of small-scale cultivation 40-60% with natural shrub or herbaceous vegetation, and 3) “Forest/Cropland Mosaics”: mosaics of small-scale cultivation 40-60% with >10% natural tree cover. Potential grazing lands were defined as the classification: “Natural Herbaceous”: dominated by herbaceous annuals (<2m) with at least 10% cover. Agricultural land (cropland plus potential grazing land) was defined as the total of the four classifications. Population density was defined by the WorldPop global population data for 2019 (WorldPop 2018). High density urban populations were excluded from the analysis. High density urban areas were defined as any contiguous area with a total population (using 2019 WorldPop data for population) of at least 50,000 people and comprised of pixels all of which met at least one of two criteria: either the pixel a) had at least 1,500 people per square km, or b) was classified as “built-up” land use by the CGLC dataset (where “built-up” was defined as land covered by buildings and other manmade structures) (Dijkstra et al. 2020). Using these datasets, any rural people living in or within 1 kilometer of TOFs on agricultural lands in 2019 were classified as tree proximate people. Euclidean distance was used as the measure to create a 1-kilometer buffer zone around each TOF pixel. The scripts for generating the tree-proximate people and the rural-urban datasets using different parameters or for different years are published and available to users. For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L., Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: a new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022 report. Rome, FAO.

References:

Buchhorn, M., Smets, B., Bertels, L., De Roo, B., Lesiv, M., Tsendbazar, N.E., Herold, M., Fritz, S., 2020. Copernicus Global Land Service: Land Cover 100m: collection 3 epoch 2019. Globe.

Dijkstra, L., Florczyk, A.J., Freire, S., Kemper, T., Melchiorri, M., Pesaresi, M. and Schiavina, M., 2020. Applying the degree of urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation. Journal of Urban Economics, p.103312.

WorldPop (www.worldpop.org - School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton; Department of Geography and Geosciences, University of Louisville; Departement de Geographie, Universite de Namur) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, 2018. Global High Resolution Population Denominators Project - Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1134076). https://dx.doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00645

Online resources:

GEE asset for "Tree proximate people – Agricultural lands, 1km cutoff distance"

As of February 2025, 5.56 billion individuals worldwide were internet users, which amounted to 67.9 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users. Global internet usage Connecting billions of people worldwide, the internet is a core pillar of the modern information society. Northern Europe ranked first among worldwide regions by the share of the population using the internet in 20254. In The Netherlands, Norway and Saudi Arabia, 99 percent of the population used the internet as of February 2025. North Korea was at the opposite end of the spectrum, with virtually no internet usage penetration among the general population, ranking last worldwide. Eastern Asia was home to the largest number of online users worldwide – over 1.34 billion at the latest count. Southern Asia ranked second, with around 1.2 billion internet users. China, India, and the United States rank ahead of other countries worldwide by the number of internet users. Worldwide internet user demographics As of 2024, the share of female internet users worldwide was 65 percent, five percent less than that of men. Gender disparity in internet usage was bigger in African countries, with around a ten percent difference. Worldwide regions, like the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe, showed a smaller usage gap between these two genders. As of 2024, global internet usage was higher among individuals between 15 and 24 years old across all regions, with young people in Europe representing the most significant usage penetration, 98 percent. In comparison, the worldwide average for the age group 15–24 years was 79 percent. The income level of the countries was also an essential factor for internet access, as 93 percent of the population of the countries with high income reportedly used the internet, as opposed to only 27 percent of the low-income markets.

The average level of the ocean has been rising since we started measuring and recording this data. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), since 1900 the global mean sea level has risen more than 200 millimeters (nearly 8 inches) and nearly half of that increase has occurred since 1993 in a concerning change in rate of rise.Sea level rise is one of the many effects of global warming. Scientists attribute sea level rise to two things, melting ice and increased ocean water temperatures. Increasing air temperatures, particularly in the polar regions, has encouraged the melting of land-based ice reserves such as glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost. Historically, warm season ice melt was balanced by replenishment during the cold season but warming temperatures have created conditions where melting exceeds the buildup of ice. This water flows through rivers and streams to the ocean in quantities sufficient to contribute to sea level rise.Oceans are also massive heat sinks. They pull large quantities of atmospheric heat and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and store it in the ocean. The sea changes temperature much more slowly than the air and over time ocean temperatures have continued to build. As the ocean water warms it expands causing the sea levels to rise.Sea levels are not rising equally across Earth. Some areas are already experiencing significant impacts due to the rising water levels while others have seen minimal changes. This is due to a variety of reasons. First, despite how it is typically illustrated Earth is not perfectly round so the height of the ocean at any given point varies. This can be due to the Earth’s rotation, ocean currents, or prevailing wind speed and direction.Experts consider sea level rise and urgent climatic threat. Many low-lying places such as islands and coastal areas are already experiencing high waters. Higher waters also make storms such as hurricanes more dangerous due to higher storm surges and flooding. As coastlines could lose key infrastructure, land will become uninhabitable, and many people could lose their livelihoods. It is estimated 10 percent of the world’s population could be impacted as the waters rise. Many of the approximately 770 million people could be forced to migrate to higher ground, or in the case of island countries, such as Kiribati, to new countries once theirs sinks below the sea.This map was created with data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and the United States Geological Survey. Experts used an elevation data and the NOAA model Scenarios of Future Mean Seal Level to illustrate the scale of potential coastal flooding. The mapmaker chose to remove levees from the data, so the areas flooded include places, particularly in the states of Texas and Louisiana, that are presently protected by this infrastructure. It is important to note that these are possible outcomes. This model does not include possible erosion, subsidence, or construction that may occur between 2022 when this data was created and 2030, 2050, or 2090 respectively. While models are powerful tools it is difficult to calculate every aspect that shapes our environment.Learn more about how coastal communities are impacted by sea level rise with this StoryMap by NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, The King Tides Project: Snap the shore, See the Future.

It is estimated that more than 8 billion people live on Earth and the population is likely to hit more than 9 billion by 2050. Approximately 55 percent of Earth’s human population currently live in areas classified as urban. That number is expected to grow by 2050 to 68 percent, according to the United Nations (UN).The largest cities in the world include Tōkyō, Japan; New Delhi, India; Shanghai, China; México City, Mexico; and São Paulo, Brazil. Each of these cities classifies as a megacity, a city with more than 10 million people. The UN estimates the world will have 43 megacities by 2030.Most cities' populations are growing as people move in for greater economic, educational, and healthcare opportunities. But not all cities are expanding. Those cities whose populations are declining may be experiencing declining fertility rates (the number of births is lower than the number of deaths), shrinking economies, emigration, or have experienced a natural disaster that resulted in fatalities or forced people to leave the region.This Global Cities map layer contains data published in 2018 by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). It shows urban agglomerations. The UN DESA defines an urban agglomeration as a continuous area where population is classified at urban levels (by the country in which the city resides) regardless of what local government systems manage the area. Since not all places record data the same way, some populations may be calculated using the city population as defined by its boundary and the metropolitan area. If a reliable estimate for the urban agglomeration was unable to be determined, the population of the city or metropolitan area is used.Data Citation: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision. Statistical Papers - United Nations (ser. A), Population and Vital Statistics Report, 2019, https://doi.org/10.18356/b9e995fe-en.

Brazil and the United States are the two most populous countries in the Americas today. In 1500, the year that Pedro Álvares Cabral made landfall in present-day Brazil and claimed it for the Portuguese crown, it is estimated that there were roughly one million people living in the region. Some estimates for the present-day United States give a population of two million in the year 1500, although estimates vary greatly. By 1820, the population of the U.S. was still roughly double that of Brazil, but rapid growth in the 19th century would see it grow 4.5 times larger by 1890, before the difference shrunk during the 20th century. In 2024, the U.S. has a population over 340 million people, making it the third most populous country in the world, while Brazil has a population of almost 218 million and is the sixth most populous. Looking to the future, population growth is expected to be lower in Brazil than in the U.S. in the coming decades, as Brazil's fertility rates are already lower, and migration rates into the United States will be much higher. Historical development The indigenous peoples of present-day Brazil and the U.S. were highly susceptible to diseases brought from the Old World; combined with mass displacement and violence, their population growth rates were generally low, therefore migration from Europe and the import of enslaved Africans drove population growth in both regions. In absolute numbers, more Europeans migrated to North America than Brazil, whereas more slaves were transported to Brazil than the U.S., but European migration to Brazil increased significantly in the early 1900s. The U.S. also underwent its demographic transition much earlier than in Brazil, therefore its peak period of population growth was almost a century earlier than Brazil. Impact of ethnicity The demographics of these countries are often compared, not only because of their size, location, and historical development, but also due to the role played by ethnicity. In the mid-1800s, these countries had the largest slave societies in the world, but a major difference between the two was the attitude towards interracial procreation. In Brazil, relationships between people of different ethnic groups were more common and less stigmatized than in the U.S., where anti-miscegenation laws prohibited interracial relationships in many states until the 1960s. Racial classification was also more rigid in the U.S., and those of mixed ethnicity were usually classified by their non-white background. In contrast, as Brazil has a higher degree of mixing between those of ethnic African, American, and European heritage, classification is less obvious, and factors such as physical appearance or societal background were often used to determine racial standing. For most of the 20th century, Brazil's government promoted the idea that race was a non-issue and that Brazil was racially harmonious, but most now acknowledge that this actually ignored inequality and hindered progress. Racial inequality has been a prevalent problem in both countries since their founding, and today, whites generally fare better in terms of education, income, political representation, and even life expectancy. Despite this adversity, significant progress has been made in recent decades, as public awareness of inequality has increased, and authorities in both countries have made steps to tackle disparities in areas such as education, housing, and employment.

The global number of smartphone users in was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total *** billion users (+***** percent). After the fifteenth consecutive increasing year, the smartphone user base is estimated to reach *** billion users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of smartphone users of was continuously increasing over the past years.Smartphone users here are limited to internet users of any age using a smartphone. The shown figures have been derived from survey data that has been processed to estimate missing demographics.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to *** countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).Find more key insights for the number of smartphone users in countries like the Americas and Asia.

In 2023, Washington, D.C. had the highest population density in the United States, with 11,130.69 people per square mile. As a whole, there were about 94.83 residents per square mile in the U.S., and Alaska was the state with the lowest population density, with 1.29 residents per square mile. The problem of population density Simply put, population density is the population of a country divided by the area of the country. While this can be an interesting measure of how many people live in a country and how large the country is, it does not account for the degree of urbanization, or the share of people who live in urban centers. For example, Russia is the largest country in the world and has a comparatively low population, so its population density is very low. However, much of the country is uninhabited, so cities in Russia are much more densely populated than the rest of the country. Urbanization in the United States While the United States is not very densely populated compared to other countries, its population density has increased significantly over the past few decades. The degree of urbanization has also increased, and well over half of the population lives in urban centers.