Does the earth have enough room to accommodate so many people?

Judging by this map, the answer is a clear yes. While overpopulation may be a localized problem in some of the densely population areas of Asia (see population maps ofBangladesh/India and Tokyo), the vast majority of the world’s land area is actually very sparsely populated.

Data viz extraordinaire Max Galka created this map using NASA’s gridded population data, which counts the global population within each nine-square-mile patch of Earth, instead of within each each district, state, or country border. Out of the 28 million total cells, the ones with a population over 8,000 are colored in yellow. That means each yellow cell has a population density of about 900 people per square mile—“roughly the same population density as the state of Massachusetts,” Galka writes in the accompanying blog post. The black regions, meanwhile, reflect sparser population clusters.

Asia’s densest spots are mostly concentrated in the inland urban areas.
Asia’s densest spots are mostly concentrated in the inland urban areas. - Nearly half (46%) of the world’s population lives within just the area shown in this image. And unlike the rest of the world, much of the population is concentrated deeply inland. The Chengdu / Chengking region, the large yellow blob in the center of China, is about the same size as the state of New York. There is a good chance you’ve never even heard of these cities, yet the area is home to over 100 million people.