What Does Population Density Look Like?
Visualization of population density scaled down to an American football field.
Lost in many of debates and discussions today are our assumptions about population density. Most people think of population density in terms of their own experience. Those living in cities often do not comprehend how much space there is between people in more rural areas. Those living in rural areas often cannot comprehend how many people regularly are within short distances of each other in densely packed urban areas.
I’ve included 4 locations in this graph. The first is the location of the infamous Wuhan fish market. The second is New York city. The other two are specific to Wisconsin. Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin. Weston is one of the many ubiquitous small towns scattered throughout the state.
This simple graphic takes the population density of a few locations and scales it to a smaller area. Most population density is given in terms of square kilometers or square miles. One acre is 1/640 of a square mile. An American football field is about 1.32 acres in size. Multiplying a people/square mile value by 1.32/640 converts it to people/football-field.