World Population

“USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population.”
- David Letterman

There is a great deal of truth to the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words." A great graph can make a point much better than mere words. For example I know India and China both have over 1 billion people out of a world total of 6.7 billion. But I never visualized this as nearly half of the world's people. The chart below shows how people are distributed throughout the world by latitude and longitude. Note the spikes for India and China.

Bottom Line
The bottom graph sure puts the US in perspective. We use the most resources in the world with the lowest population density. Unless they have traveled to Europe or Asia, most Americans have no appreciation for how land-rich we are; how uncrowded in comparison. We think nothing of large parks, golf courses, giant cemeteries, thousand acre farms, etc. Open land is rare and expensive elsewhere in the world.