Mogadishu in Somalia led the ranking of cities with the highest population density in 2023, with ****** residents per square kilometer. When it comes to countries, Monaco is the most densely populated state worldwide.

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

As of 2023, the top five most densely populated cities in Latin America and the Caribbean were in Colombia. The capital, Bogotá, ranked first with over ****** inhabitants per square kilometer.

Mexico City ranked as the most densely populated city in Mexico as of 2023. The capital recorded ***** inhabitants per square kilometer. Xalapa and Acapulco followed with ***** and ***** inhabitants per square kilometer, respectively.

Context

This is a dataset of the most highly populated city (if applicable) in a form easy to join with the COVID19 Global Forecasting (Week 1) dataset. You can see how to use it in this kernel

Content

There are four columns. The first two correspond to the columns from the original COVID19 Global Forecasting (Week 1) dataset. The other two is the highest population density, at city level, for the given country/state. Note that some countries are very small and in those cases the population density reflects the entire country. Since the original dataset has a few cruise ships as well, I've added them there.

Acknowledgements

Thanks a lot to Kaggle for this competition that gave me the opportunity to look closely at some data and understand this problem better.

Inspiration

Summary: I believe that the square root of the population density should relate to the logistic growth factor of the SIR model. I think the SEIR model isn't applicable due to any intervention being too late for a fast-spreading virus like this, especially in places with dense populations.

After playing with the data provided in COVID19 Global Forecasting (Week 1) (and everything else online or media) a bit, one thing becomes clear. They have nothing to do with epidemiology. They reflect sociopolitical characteristics of a country/state and, more specifically, the reactivity and attitude towards testing.

The testing method used (PCR tests) means that what we measure could potentially be a proxy for the number of people infected during the last 3 weeks, i.e the growth (with lag). It's not how many people have been infected and recovered. Antibody or serology tests would measure that, and by using them, we could go back to normality faster... but those will arrive too late. Way earlier, China will have experimentally shown that it's safe to go back to normal as soon as your number of newly infected per day is close to zero.

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F197482%2F429e0fdd7f1ce86eba882857ac7a735e%2Fcovid-summary.png?generation=1585072438685236&alt=media" alt="">

My view, as a person living in NYC, about this virus, is that by the time governments react to media pressure, to lockdown or even test, it's too late. In dense areas, everyone susceptible has already amble opportunities to be infected. Especially for a virus with 5-14 days lag between infections and symptoms, a period during which hosts spread it all over on subway, the conditions are hopeless. Active populations have already been exposed, mostly asymptomatic and recovered. Sensitive/older populations are more self-isolated/careful in affluent societies (maybe this isn't the case in North Italy). As the virus finishes exploring the active population, it starts penetrating the more isolated ones. At this point in time, the first fatalities happen. Then testing starts. Then the media and the lockdown. Lockdown seems overly effective because it coincides with the tail of the disease spread. It helps slow down the virus exploring the long-tail of sensitive population, and we should all contribute by doing it, but it doesn't cause the end of the disease. If it did, then as soon as people were back in the streets (see China), there would be repeated outbreaks.

Smart politicians will test a lot because it will make their condition look worse. It helps them demand more resources. At the same time, they will have a low rate of fatalities due to large denominator. They can take credit for managing well a disproportionally major crisis - in contrast to people who didn't test.

We were lucky this time. We, Westerners, have woken up to the potential of a pandemic. I'm sure we will give further resources for prevention. Additionally, we will be more open-minded, helping politicians to have more direct responses. We will also require them to be more responsible in their messages and reactions.

Monaco led the ranking for countries with the highest population density in 2024, with nearly 26,000 residents per square kilometer. The Special Administrative Region of Macao came in second, followed by Singapore. The world’s second smallest country Monaco is the world’s second-smallest country, with an area of about two square kilometers and a population of only around 40,000. It is a constitutional monarchy located by the Mediterranean Sea, and while Monaco is not part of the European Union, it does participate in some EU policies. The country is perhaps most famous for the Monte Carlo casino and for hosting the Monaco Grand Prix, the world's most prestigious Formula One race. The global population Globally, the population density per square kilometer is about 60 inhabitants, and Asia is the most densely populated region in the world. The global population is increasing rapidly, so population density is only expected to increase. In 1950, for example, the global population stood at about 2.54 billion people, and it reached over eight billion during 2023.

Population of Urban Agglomerations with 300,000 Inhabitants or more in 2014, by city, 1950-2030 (thousands). Data for 1,692 cities contained in the Excel file.

Note: Each country has its own definition of what is 'urban' and therefore use exercise caution when comparing cities in different countries.

Data available from the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2014). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, CD-ROM Edition.

Further detail of population estimates, land area, and population density for world urban areas with over 500,000 people (924 areas) is available with Demographia's World Urban Areas report (2014). Much of this data is based on the UN urban agglomerations, though a range of other sources are also used.

Naples is the Italian city with the highest population density. As of 2024, the largest south Italian city counts 7,800 inhabitants per square kilometer. Milan followed with 7,600 residents per square kilometer, whereas Rome, the largest Italian city, registered a population density of only 2,100 people, 5,700 inhabitants per square kilometer less than Naples.

This dataset describes counterfactual public transport networks that were simulated for 36 world cities, and the aggregate data discussed in the paper in which these data are published. UNIT OF MEASURE: Meters of network length. RESOLUTION: 1:1000000. COMPLETENESS: 100%. POLICY CONTEXT: Regional and urban policies. METHODOLOGY: Network expansion modelling. DATA SOURCES: FUA boundaries and population sizes according to 1km GHSL population grids (release 2019). LEVEL OF AGGREGATION: cities defined on population density clusters. UNCERTAINTY AND LIMITATIONS: Data based on simulation exercise with the explicit aim of creating counterfactual networks.

Due to rapid urbanization over the past 20 years, many newly developed areas have lagged in socio-economic maturity, creating an imbalance with older cities and leading to the rise of "ghost cities". However, the complexity of socio-economic factors has hindered global studies from measuring this phenomenon. To address this gap, a unified framework based on urban vitality theory and multi-source data is proposed to measure the Ghost City Index (GCI), which has been validated using various data sources. The study encompasses 8,841 natural cities worldwide with areas exceeding 5 km², categorizing each into new urban areas (developed after 2005) and old urban areas (developed before 2005). Urban vitality was gauged using the density of road networks, points of interest (POIs), and population density with 1 km resolution across morphological, functional, and social dimensions. By comparing urban vitality in new and old urban areas, we quantify the GCI globally using the theory of urban vitality for the first time. The results reveal that the vitality of new urban areas is 7.69% that of old ones. The top 5% (442) of cities were designated as ghost cities, a finding mirrored by news media and other research. This study sheds light on strategies for sustainable global urbanization, crucial for the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.The code file gives the calculation process of data respectively, and the excel file gives the obtained data. For the explanation of the fields in “citypoint.shp”, please refer to the Supplementary Information of the paper (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103350).Ref: Zhang, Y., Tu, T., & Long, Y. (2025). Inferring ghost cities on the globe in newly developed urban areas based on urban vitality with multi-source data. Habitat International, 158, 103350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103350

Human population density in 2000, by terrestrial ecoregion.

We summarized human population density by ecoregion using the Gridded Population of the World database and projections for 2015 (CIESIN et al. 2005). The mean for each ecoregion was extracted using a zonal statistics algorithm.

These data were derived by The Nature Conservancy, and were displayed in a map published in The Atlas of Global Conservation (Hoekstra et al., University of California Press, 2010). More information at http://nature.org/atlas.

Data derived from:

Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University; and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT). 2005. Gridded Population of the World Version 3 (GPWv3). Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), Columbia University Palisades, New York. Available at http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw. Digital media.

United Nations Population Division (UNPD). 2007. Global population, largest urban agglomerations and cities of largest change. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision Population Database. Available at http://esa.un.org/unup/index.asp.

For more about The Atlas of Global Conservation check out the web map (which includes links to download spatial data and view metadata) at http://maps.tnc.org/globalmaps.html. You can also read more detail about the Atlas at http://www.nature.org/science-in-action/leading-with-science/conservation-atlas.xml, or buy the book at http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520262560

Understanding scaling relations of social and environmental attributes of urban systems is necessary for effectively managing cities. Urban scaling theory (UST) has assumed that population density scales positively with city size. We present a new global analysis using a publicly available database of 933 cities from 38 countries. Our results showed that (18/38) 47% of countries analyzed supported increasing density scaling (pop ~ area) with exponents ~⅚ as UST predicts. In contrast, 17 of 38 countries (~45%) exhibited density scalings statistically indistinguishable from constant population densities across cities of varying sizes. These results were generally consistent in years spanning four decades from 1975 to 2015. Importantly, density varies by an order of magnitude between regions and countries and decreases in more developed economies. Our results (i) point to how economic and regional differences may affect the scaling of density with city size and (ii) show how understanding country- and region-specific strategies could inform effective management of urban systems for biodiversity, public health, conservation and resiliency from local to global scales.200 word statement of contribution: Urban Scaling Theory (UST) is a general scaling framework that makes quantitative predictions for how many urban attributes spanning physical, biological and social dimensions scale with city size; thus, UST has great implications in guiding future city developments. A major assumption of UST is that larger cities become denser. We evaluated this assumption using a publicly available global dataset of 933 cities in 38 countries. Our scaling analysis of population size and area of cities revealed that while many countries analyzed showed increasing densities with city size, about 45% of countries showed constant densities across cities. These results question a key assumption of UST. Our results suggest policies and management strategies for biodiversity conservation, public health and sustainability of urban systems may need to be tailored to national and regional scaling relations to be effective.

Please cite our paper if you publish material based on those datasets

G. Khodabandelou, V. Gauthier, M. El-Yacoubi, M. Fiore, "Estimation of Static and Dynamic Urban Populations with Mobile Network Metadata", in IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing, 2018 (in Press). 10.1109/TMC.2018.2871156

Abstract

Communication-enabled devices that are physically carried by individuals are today pervasive,
which opens unprecedented opportunities for collecting digital metadata about the mobility of large populations. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for the estimation of people density at metropolitan scales, using subscriber presence metadata collected by a mobile operator. We show that our approach suits the estimation of static population densities, i.e., of the distribution of dwelling units per urban area contained in traditional censuses. Specifically, it achieves higher accuracy than that granted by previous equivalent solutions. In addition, our approach enables the estimation of dynamic population densities, i.e., the time-varying distributions of people in a conurbation. Our results build on significant real-world mobile network metadata and relevant ground-truth information in multiple urban scenarios.

Dataset Columns

This dataset cover one month of data taken during the month of April 2015 for three Italian cities: Rome, Milan, Turin. The raw data has been provided during the Telecom Italia Big Data Challenge (http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/en/innovazione/archivio/big-data-challenge-2015.html)

1. grid_id: the coordinate of the grid can be retrieved with the shapefile of a given city
2. date: format Y-M-D H:M:S
4. landuse_label: the land use label has been computed by through method described in [2]
5. presence: presence data of a given grid id as provided by the Telecom Italia Big Data Challenge
6. population: Census population of a given grid block as defined by the Istituto nazionale di statistica (ISTAT https://www.istat.it/en/censuses) in 2011
7. estimation: Dynamics density population estimation (in person) as the result of the method described in [1]
8. area: surface of the "grid id" considered in km^2
9. geometry: the shape of the area considered with the EPSG:3003 coordinate system (only with quilt)

Note

Due to legal constraints, we cannot share directly the original data from Telecom Italia Big Data Challenge we used to build this dataset.

Easy access to this dataset with quilt

Install the dataset repository:

$ quilt install vgauthier/DynamicPopEstimate

Use the dataset with a Panda Dataframe

>>> from quilt.data.vgauthier import DynamicPopEstimate
>>> import pandas as pd
>>> df = pd.DataFrame(DynamicPopEstimate.rome())

Use the dataset with a GeoPanda Dataframe

>>> from quilt.data.vgauthier import DynamicPopEstimate
>>> import geopandas as gpd
>>> df = gpd.DataFrame(DynamicPopEstimate.rome())

References

[1] G. Khodabandelou, V. Gauthier, M. El-Yacoubi, M. Fiore, "Population estimation from mobile network traffic metadata", in proc of the 17th International Symposium on A World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM), pp. 1 - 9, 2016.

[2] A. Furno, M. Fiore, R. Stanica, C. Ziemlicki, and Z. Smoreda, "A tale of ten cities: Characterizing signatures of mobile traffic in urban areas," IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Volume: 16, Issue: 10, 2017.

Canada, with 3.33 people per square kilometre, has one of the lowest population densities in the world. In 2001, most of Canada's population of 30,007,094 lived within 200 kilometres of the United States (along Canada's south). In fact, the inhabitants of our three biggest cities -- Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver -- can drive to the border in less than two hours. Thousands of kilometres to the north, our polar region -- the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut -- is relatively empty, embracing 41% of our land mass but only 0.3% of our population. An inset map shows in greater detail the Windsor-Québec Corridor where a high concentration of Canadians live.

As of 2025, Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan was the largest world urban agglomeration, with 37 million people living there. Delhi ranked second with more than 34 million, with Shanghai in third with more than 30 million inhabitants.

Description

This comprehensive dataset provides a wealth of information about all countries worldwide, covering a wide range of indicators and attributes. It encompasses demographic statistics, economic indicators, environmental factors, healthcare metrics, education statistics, and much more. With every country represented, this dataset offers a complete global perspective on various aspects of nations, enabling in-depth analyses and cross-country comparisons.

Key Features

Country: Name of the country.

Density (P/Km2): Population density measured in persons per square kilometer.

Abbreviation: Abbreviation or code representing the country.

Agricultural Land (%): Percentage of land area used for agricultural purposes.

Land Area (Km2): Total land area of the country in square kilometers.

Armed Forces Size: Size of the armed forces in the country.

Birth Rate: Number of births per 1,000 population per year.

Calling Code: International calling code for the country.

Capital/Major City: Name of the capital or major city.

CO2 Emissions: Carbon dioxide emissions in tons.

CPI: Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation and purchasing power.

CPI Change (%): Percentage change in the Consumer Price Index compared to the previous year.

Currency_Code: Currency code used in the country.

Fertility Rate: Average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime.

Forested Area (%): Percentage of land area covered by forests.

Gasoline_Price: Price of gasoline per liter in local currency.

GDP: Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services produced in the country.

Gross Primary Education Enrollment (%): Gross enrollment ratio for primary education.

Gross Tertiary Education Enrollment (%): Gross enrollment ratio for tertiary education.

Infant Mortality: Number of deaths per 1,000 live births before reaching one year of age.

Largest City: Name of the country's largest city.

Life Expectancy: Average number of years a newborn is expected to live.

Maternal Mortality Ratio: Number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

Minimum Wage: Minimum wage level in local currency.

Official Language: Official language(s) spoken in the country.

Out of Pocket Health Expenditure (%): Percentage of total health expenditure paid out-of-pocket by individuals.

Physicians per Thousand: Number of physicians per thousand people.

Population: Total population of the country.

Population: Labor Force Participation (%): Percentage of the population that is part of the labor force.

Tax Revenue (%): Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP.

Total Tax Rate: Overall tax burden as a percentage of commercial profits.

Unemployment Rate: Percentage of the labor force that is unemployed.

Urban Population: Percentage of the population living in urban areas.

Latitude: Latitude coordinate of the country's location.

Longitude: Longitude coordinate of the country's location.

Potential Use Cases

Analyze population density and land area to study spatial distribution patterns.

Investigate the relationship between agricultural land and food security.

Examine carbon dioxide emissions and their impact on climate change.

Explore correlations between economic indicators such as GDP and various socio-economic factors.

Investigate educational enrollment rates and their implications for human capital development.

Analyze healthcare metrics such as infant mortality and life expectancy to assess overall well-being.

Study labor market dynamics through indicators such as labor force participation and unemployment rates.

Investigate the role of taxation and its impact on economic development.

Explore urbanization trends and their social and environmental consequences.

The urban–rural continuum classifies the global population, allocating rural populations around differently-sized cities. The classification is based on four dimensions: population distribution, population density, urban center location, and travel time to urban centers, all of which can be mapped globally and consistently and then aggregated as administrative unit statistics.Using spatial data, we matched all rural locations to their urban center of reference based on the time needed to reach these urban centers. A hierarchy of urban centers by population size (largest to smallest) is used to determine which center is the point of “reference” for a given rural location: proximity to a larger center “dominates” over a smaller one in the same travel time category. This was done for 7 urban categories and then aggregated, for presentation purposes, into “large cities” (over 1 million people), “intermediate cities” (250,000 –1 million), and “small cities and towns” (20,000–250,000).Finally, to reflect the diversity of population density across the urban–rural continuum, we distinguished between high-density rural areas with over 1,500 inhabitants per km2 and lower density areas. Unlike traditional functional area approaches, our approach does not define urban catchment areas by using thresholds, such as proportion of people commuting; instead, these emerge endogenously from our urban hierarchy and by calculating the shortest travel time.Urban-Rural Catchment Areas (URCA).tif is a raster dataset of the 30 urban–rural continuum categories for the urban–rural continuum showing the catchment areas around cities and towns of different sizes. Each rural pixel is assigned to one defined travel time category: less than one hour, one to two hours, and two to three hours travel time to one of seven urban agglomeration sizes. The agglomerations range from large cities with i) populations greater than 5 million and ii) between 1 to 5 million; intermediate cities with iii) 500,000 to 1 million and iv) 250,000 to 500,000 inhabitants; small cities with populations v) between 100,000 and 250,000 and vi) between 50,000 and 100,000; and vii) towns of between 20,000 and 50,000 people. The remaining pixels that are more than 3 hours away from any urban agglomeration of at least 20,000 people are considered as either hinterland or dispersed towns being that they are not gravitating around any urban agglomeration. The raster also allows for visualizing a simplified continuum created by grouping the seven urban agglomerations into 4 categories.Urban-Rural Catchment Areas (URCA).tif is in GeoTIFF format, band interleaved with LZW compression, suitable for use in Geographic Information Systems and statistical packages. The data type is byte, with pixel values ranging from 1 to 30. The no data value is 128. It has a spatial resolution of 30 arc seconds, which is approximately 1km at the equator. The spatial reference system (projection) is EPSG:4326 - WGS84 - Geographic Coordinate System (lat/long). The geographic extent is 83.6N - 60S / 180E - 180W. The same tif file is also available as an ESRI ArcMap MapPackage Urban-Rural Catchment Areas.mpkFurther details are in the ReadMe_data_description.docx

Rome is the largest Italian metropolitan area. As of 2024, the urban area of the capital city has a population of around 4.23 million people. Milan and Naples follow with 3.25 million and 2.97 million people, respectively. In terms of inhabitants per square kilometer, Naples, located in the south, has the highest population density. Rome, Milan, and Naples are also Italy's largest cities.

The population density picture of Boston is generally a story of two Bostons: the high density central and northern neighborhoods, and the low density southern neighborhoods.The highest density areas of Boston are particularly concentrated in Brighton, Allston, and the Fenway area, areas of the city with large numbers of college students and young adults. There is also high population density in areas such as the Back Bay, the South End, Charlestown, the North End, and South Boston. These are all relatively small areas geographically, but have housing stock conducive to population density (e.g. multi-family dwelling units, row housing, large apartment buildings). The southern neighborhoods, specifically Hyde Park and West Roxbury, have significant numbers of people living in them, but lots sizes tend to be much larger. These areas of the city also tend to have more single family dwelling units. In that, there are fewer people per square mile than places north in the city. Census data reveals that population density varies noticeably from area to area. Small area census data do a better job depicting where the crowded neighborhoods are. In this map, areas of highest density exceed 30,000 persons per square kilometer. Very high density areas exceed 7,000 persons per square kilometer. High density areas exceed 5,200 persons per square kilometer. The last categories break at 3,330 persons per square kilometer, and 1,500 persons per square kilometer.How to make this map for your city

As of July 2023, Monaco is the country with the highest population density worldwide, with an estimated population of nearly ****** per square kilometer.