Curbin' the Urban

These are the countries that contain only one urban area, and that at the lower end of the population count (500,000+)

Albania
Bahrain
Benin
Central African Republic
Croatia
Djibouti
Eritrea
Gabon
Gambia
Jamaica
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Mauritania
Moldova
Nicaragua
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Sierra Leone
Tajikistan
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkmenistan

Pop you later

Oh, too bad if you're not a city planner. I'm on a roll.

Floor area ratio is calculated by taking the total floor area of buildings and dividing by the land area of the lot they are built on.

Employment density is the number of jobs in any given area.

Gross density is any density figure for a given area of land that include uses not directly relevant to the figure.

Nett density  is a density figure for a given area of land that excludes land not directly related to the figure.

Weighted density. I feel the weight of destiny requiring my services elsewhere when it comes time to describe that.

Populate all pear-ish

Agricultural density may sound physiological but this scale keeps it real by measuring the rural population per square kilometre of arable land. Clearly, there's some benefit to knowing whether there are folk still willing to till the soil. Finding a neat listing for this category is not so readily available, hint hint, budding researchers.

Residential density is the number of people living in an urban area or area of residential land.

Urban density is the number of people inhabiting an urban area/total area of urban land. It's possible to subdivide categories of measurement here but to the level that a town planner might require. As a layman of the layout, I'm trying to distinguish this from residential density, then I realise that residential density is but one measurement of urban density; which can be measured as precisely as floor area ratio or as encompassing as population density

Last but not least, ecological optimum, the density of population which can be supported by the natural resources.

Baird time

Jay Weatherill weathers all to a slim win in South Australia. Major party candidates seem to need the help of independents as we become more democratically porous.

In an upset, here in New South Wales, we lost our leader and the Treasurer has taken his place. Will only a mic'ed bed tell us what Mike Baird will be like? Will he be open and accountable; cupboard and soul bared? Will he be Baird to the bone?

Will now

We interrupt this view on population to remark that there is a new Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman. Actually he's been in place for a few weeks now.

I don't know what was wrong with Lara Giddings.

Growing Concern

With Monaco and Macau sporting large population densities that allow little room for growth - edible plant growth, that is - and Djibouti's 21 people per square kilometre turning into 51,861 when applying the real population density measure, what nations are best placed for self-sufficiency? By the look of it, it's another five that have all received recent mention: Niger (84), Canada (78), Niue (72), Kazakhstan (69) and Australia (43).

Grew some

Here's the strange thing though, the territories that dwelt at the base of this list have no more means of sustaining themselves than the ten square kilometres supporting a population of 4,425,720. There's the 56,375 population of Greenland to contend with 0.03 population density but a little problem: zero square kilometres of arable land. A small population reliant on trade with others.

There are fifteen countries in that predicament and they consist of some of the small populations or small dependent states so far surveyed: Monaco, Macau, Gibraltar, Vatican City, Jersey, Nauru, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Anguilla, Norfolk Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, Falkland Islands, Svalbard and Greenland.

Hong Kong has a larger population than Singapore but also a larger patch of arable land - 53 square kilometres. The scale of the disparity between the population and the means within its landmass to be sustainable is too great to quibble about who is most challenged.
Unless you look at the two measures, population density (people per square kilometres) and real population density (people per square kilometre of arable land).
In the first measure, Hong Kong's population density of 6,621 is greater than Singapore's 6,483.
In the second measure, the one with the arable criteria, Singapore has a real population density of 440,998 to Hong Kong's 131,101, switching them quite substantially.

China's performance is a good average of 943 people per square kilometre of arable land.

Bangladesh has fifty countries higher than it on the scale. That's how great the difference is in these measures.

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