Grow Your Own

(This list is to be taken with a grain of salt - and a borrowed cup of sugar. It's a possibly out of date list of those countries that are overpopulated in the sense that they have more people than they can sustain within their borders. It's called physiological density and is a measure of population per square kilometre of arable land)

Singapore
Hong Kong
Djibouti
Bahrain
Kuwait
Gaza Strip
Puerto Rico
Oman
US Virgin Islands
French Polynesia

Gab on

It's immaterial whether Gabon has a low population density or Ethiopia has a large population, there are myriad other factors influencing progress and sustainability. Even if it was determined that living in an area with less people was better, you have no business in either Ethiopia or Gabon, and even if they had a good balance of lifestyle, there's no saying a stranger's sudden presence will do anything to enhance that, or even complement that.

There are so many factors causing a population boom and equally so a serious decline. It doesn't do to generalise. I'd venture that administrations at either end of the scale have it as a factor in their determinations.

Largely agrarian societies have receded, and land needs are contracting with the change.

People have shown they're willing to crowd around in places that have otherwise plenty of space. Convenience and particular proclivities dictate a postcode as much as any other factor. Having lived in isolation, it had its shelf life for me. Chiefly childhood.

Few, that's a relief

As we can see, small populations can be dense like the Holy See - where all you can see are the holy - or appropriately dinky like those islands, Pitcairn and the Falklands.

The population of Greenland? 56,840 according to one source, which is a little over that of the Marshall Islands but their population density is 310 people per square kilometre in 181 square kilometres. That's forty second in terms of density, 142 the difference. But it's not a large population: the same as Amazon in Lane County Oregon. Being in the US, they take imperial measures but you get some indication; 4,306 people per square mile. Okay, I've done the math - 1,662.55 people per square kilometre. So, yes, entire island nations or sovereign states or dependent territories or whatever with smaller population density than some chunk of a city in a county in a state. That no one's ever heard of; the name conjuring up the Basin or the River or the Rainforest or the Website well before we get to Eugene Oregon.

Spacious

Country	Density (pop.sq.km)
Guyana	3.65
Canada	3.56
Libya	3.5
Botswana	3.48
Mauritania	3.36
Suriname	3.26
Iceland	3.15
Australia	3.04
French Guiana	2.65
Namibia	2.56
Western Sahara	2.25
Mongolia	1.76
Pitcairn Islands	1.04
Falkland Islands	0.21
Svalbard and Jan Mayen	0.04
Greenland	0.03

I said "Least PopulOUS"

Country		Population
Anguilla		15,236
Nauru		10,000
Tuvalu		10,000
Montserrat		6,000
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha		4,000
Falkland Islands		3,000
Niue		1,500
Tokelau		1,100
Vatican City		500
Pitcairn Islands		67

Populated

598,200 citizens, that's the same population as Taiz in Yemen, but this is in 29 and a half square kilometres. Ta'izz, as it iz also known, is 10,677 km²
Macau is a dependent territory, included in with countries when counting population, it is down at 168th in terms of population size.

Then there is Vatican City which is positively tiny in population. Along with Monaco - the micro states aren't known for their numbers so much as the way they pack them in.

China has 142 people per square km. This is the same as The Gambia and Cyprus. Gambia has a population of 1.791 million, Cyprus 1.129 million. That's million, not billion.

China and Russia are very large countries with large natural features so there are deserts and forests to escape people. Given Bangladesh's placement in both measures, it is the land most likely to be full of people.

In fact, that's what this list below affirms. I still haven't got my head around what distinguishes the most populated countries: how is this determined in contrast to the countries with the highest population and those with the most inhabitants per square kilometre. It must be an amalgam to signify those countries that are both crowded and numerous, if that makes sense.

Bangladesh	143,998	988.38
Taiwan	36,191	646
South Korea	99,461	505
Rwanda	25,314	416
Netherlands	41,526	405.32
Haiti	27,065	385
India	3,287,240	377.87
Israel	22,072	369
Belgium	30,528	365
Burundi	27,816	365
Japan	377,915	336
Philippines	300,000	331.13
Sri Lanka	65,610	309

A bit dense

     Density/km2                                                            

Macau                                                                          20,069
Monaco                                                                        18,068
Singapore                                                                       7,666
Hong Kong                                                                     6,516
Gibraltar                                                                          4,250
Vatican City                                                                    1,818
Bahrain                                                                           1,631
Malta                                                                              1,321
Bermuda                                                                         1,212
Sint Maarten                                                                   1,101
Maldives                                                                         1,065

and running up no one's behind, Bangladesh