Talk:List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density/Archive 1

message: * World population as shown is 6,464,750,000, but if you add up the populations of the individual countries, you get 6,487,168,702
* For Grenada, the table shows 260, but calculations give 299
* For Poland, the table shows 119, but calculations give 123
* For Turks and Caicos, the table shows 61, but calculations give 63
* The data is supposedly from the UNWPPR, but trying to get data out of that website is like pulling teeth. You're only allowed to get the population of five countries at a time, so I can't check to see if there are really gross discrepancies, but when I did a random check on Hungary, they show the population as 10998000, not 10997730. Everything is in multiples of 1000, which means that the data did NOT come from there.
According to Wikipedia policy, (Wikipedia:Verifiability), 
Since there is NOTHING in that article that is backed up by Wikipedia:Reliable Sources, that means that ANY EDITOR can come in and BLANK THE ENTIRE ARTICLE and be fully in compliance with Wikipedia policy. The burden of showing that content is verifiable lies not with the editor who wants to delete it, but with the editor who wants to include it. 
Disreputable articles like this don't belong in Wikipedia. If someone else wants to upgrade this article to meet Wikipedia standards within the next few days, fine. If it doesn't happen, I will write a script to extract the appropriate information from the CIA World Factbook (which IS a readily-available reliable source) and automatically generate a new article. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 07:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unrounded figures are available at the UN Common Database. There are possibly errors. I will check out those you indicated. But if you see other errors, please change them instead of wholesale saying that the whole thing is wrong. Thanks for your help. --Polaron | Talk 13:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Added note about calculated figures inconsistent with UN tabulated values. --Polaron | Talk 13:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DISPUTED 

message: Why is The Principality of Sealand not listed, the wiki page for it lists its pop density as 3.6 million/sq km, which is by far number 1
--Pollard666 22:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sealand 

message: I noticed that the total area of the world was listed as about 14 million. However, this is smaller than Russia, let alone the world. Is this intentional?
:Fixed.--Patrick 10:35, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Total Area 

message: I've put the fractional densities back in for the bottom three countries - please note that a density of 0.2 persons per sq km does not imply that one person has been chopped up and spread over a wide area. :) Listing both the Falklands and Greenland as "0" fails to show that one is 10 times more dense than the other. sjorford:// 14:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fractional densities 

message: There is a duplicate version of this article here: List_of_countries_by_population_density/temp -Himasaram 11:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate article 

message: I think you should include data on individual UK countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Although part of the UK they are individual countries (with their own flags, anthems, identities, even rugby and soccer teams). However they should be included separately mostly beacause there is such a huge difference in density - England has 382 people /sqkm making it one of the most densley populated in the world, while Scotland has only 64. 
The data for each (2001/2002 census data) is as follows:
England 130,326 sqkm pop: 49,855,700 = 382 people/km²
Scotland 83,859 sqkm pop: 5,683,062  = 64 people/km²
Wales 20,779 sqkm pop: 2,918,700  = 140 people/km²
Northern Ireland 14,139 sqkm pop: 1,702,600 = 120 people/km²
:I concur, and further more i think it is only technically accurate to include the "constituent countries" of the UK in the "List of countries by population density" and i think they should take prominence over the UK witch is technicaly a kingdom. If possible figures should also be displayed for Berwick upon Tweed as it is given separate status form the UK much the same as the Isle of Man, though this may prove difficult. Zippokovich 00:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK data 

message: Christmas Island population information appears wrong.  It currently says 396 in 135 sq. kms (2.x people/km^2).  However, their demographic section says 1508 as of 2001 and ~1600 as of 2005, which would put it at about 11.x people/km^2.  I'm not sure what the policy for updating the table is so I figure I should check here first. --Farnkerl 08:27, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christmas Island 

message: Currently, all except the last four entries are given with no decimal places (and as far as I can tell, always rounded down!), and the last four are given with two decimal places. A list like this, which is based on the division of the two prior numbers, should not be given according to decimal places, but according to significant figures. I recently made a very conservative change -- to make all those below 10 people/km^2 give exactly 2 significant figures, which seems somewhat more reasonable. However, my edit was reverted by Cantus. Cantus, please explain why you reverted this, and give reasons why you think the current way is better. I believe we should go much further, and give every value with its own correct number of significant figures, according to significance arithmetic, calculated as the minimum of the number of significant figures in the population and the area columns. I am awaiting replies from those interested in making or not making this change. ralmin 08:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: give all population densities to correct number of [[significant figures]] 

message: Hello:  I am not familiar with this page, but suspect that there has been vandalism of the population data on Lebanon by User: 198.7.245.79.  Please see edit log.—Gaff talk 04:39, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: --208.63.166.175 22:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  population density 

message: As in every year on the eve of the Israeli Independence day the Israeli Bureau of statistics released updated estimates of Israeli population.
The numbers I updated were taken from http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/newhodaot/hodaa_template.html?hodaa=200611092 (Hebrew).
An English version of the announcement is supposed to be available at http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/newhodaot/tables_template_eng.html?hodaa=200611092 but I can't open it. Maybe because I use Firefox on Linux.
The Hebrew announcement contains a disclaimer that the number does not include a population of foreiners leaving in Israel, which as of end of 2004 was estimated to be 179,000 people, some of them lived less than a year in Israel.
These are temporary numbers released especially for the Independence day.
If this update breaks some rules about this page then please let me know so I won't repeat the mistake.
Penedo 07:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israel population update May 2006 

message: Related to the prior post on significant figures...
I realize that in the articles (and in data presented elsewhere) on individual countries it is apparently standard to give the population down to a single person--something that seems utterly ridiculous to me even for a small city--but isn't it terribly imprudent to give the world population with such accuracy?  Given the difficulty of counting every person in the world simultaneously it just seems silly.
--213.47.116.40 00:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precision in numbers 

message: What exactly is the source for this data?  Yes, I know it says at the bottom of the page, and those articles seem to have trustworthy, reliable, and recent data.  The accuracy of the population and area data was argued on those talk pages and I don't wish to rehash the discussion here.  But, checking the largest countries in area, I have come to Sudan (#10) before getting anything close to the correct figure.  I would guess that area does not change much year by year, so it is quite unusual that the first 9 countries are off by, in some cases, hundreds of square kilometers.  Is coastal erosion that much of a factor that the area of a country would change by that much before wikipedians can keep up with the updates?  Kazakhstan does not border an ocean, but the land area may decrease or increase based on the rise or fall of the Caspian Sea.  But, Kyrgyzstan, for instance, a landlocked country, has different values for area in both lists.  I would propose that this article be updated based on the data from the sources given.  When new annual population data is issued from the same source (UN), then it could be update.  Any thoughts?  Or can somebody help me understand the reason(s) for the discrepancies?  Thanks.  Ufwuct 04:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll make changes soon according to the sources within the other Wikipedia articles if no one has any objections.  Thanks. Ufwuct 04:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The numbers for this article are supposed to be derived from the List of countries by area and List of countries by population. However, when the data for those two lists were updated to use UN figures, this list was not updated. Polaron | Talk 04:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Source for data

message: Is anyone else having trouble with the link?  Or is it just me?  Thanks. Ufwuct 01:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Link

message: Would anyone have any objection if I added another digit (sig. fig.) in the people/km^2 column to countries with, say, below 40 per km^2, just to differentiate some of the countries at that end of the scale?  Ufwuct 01:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, I've just gone ahead and made the changes.  I'm thinking of adding a sig fig up to ~50 (or  60).  Ufwuct 16:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Precision

message: where is america?Mirddes 07:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  America? 

message: population density shouldn't be calculated as population/total land area. It should be calculated by population/arable land area. Otherwise it isn't really telling us much.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.106.33 (talk • contribs) 
: Au contraire. It's telling how crowded the country is. You've never heard of sowing salt? It turns arable land into nonarable land. You've never heard of irrigation? It's turned parts of California from waste desert to some of the most productive land on earth. The real problem with this article is that the numbers cannot be trusted. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 03:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, whilst density may tell you how crowded the country is as a whole, it neglects urban area. For instance, Australia is the 6th largest country in the world. Most of the landmass is dominated by desert. The population of 20.5 million tends to stay on the temperate eastern coastline. The population of Sydney is 4.5 million with a density of 345.7 persons per square kilometre. Quite a jump from Australia's density of 2.6 persons per square kilometre.--Just James 22:11, 11 October 2006 (GMT+10:00)
Does a higher population density mean people live closer together? That's what I think, not what I know. 66.191.115.61 17:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population density 

message: According to this source, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics has published updated data about Israel's population. According to the official data, 6,990,700 Israeli citizens are living in Israel and 178,000 non-citizens are living in Israel. I used this official information to update the list and the densiti calculation. If there is any problem with it, please let me know. Daniel 13:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updated Israel population Sept 2006 

message: Why is Saint-Pierre and Miquelon on this list? They're not a sovereign country, and they're not on some lists, like List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita. Would anyone object to their removal? Foobaz·o< 03:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All entries on the list (with the addition of Taiwan) are those listed by the UN as countries (i.e. with their own ISO-3166 code). Sovereign states are only a subset of the list of countries. See List of countries. --Polaron | Talk 05:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Foobaz·o< 17:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Saint-Pierre and Miquelon]] 

message: Why are non-sovereign states (i.e. Hong Kong, Channel Islands, etc.) given rankings? I don't mind including them on the list as a comparison but this is supposed to be a list of countries by population density, so why are territories that are not recognized as countries given rankings? Jagged 09:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But they are listed as separate countries by the UN. They are given their own country codes and top-level internet domains. Would you rather include them in the figures for sovereign states? Sovereign states are only a subset of countries. --Polaron | Talk 13:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings of non-sovereign city-states and islands 

message: In the Singapore article, it says in the infobox that Singapore's area is 699 km². Here, it's 683. Can someone please clarify? (I can't because I'm confused enough what with other sources saying 639 etc.) Littleghostboo[ talk ] 02:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think 699 is the current official area as listed by the Singapore government. The number used here is the one listed by the UN and I think is the number from the 2000 census. I believe there have been some new land reclamations since then that have increased the area. --Polaron | Talk 02:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. So which figure do we generally use in articles? Littleghostboo[ talk ] 09:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Area of [[Singapore]] 

message: I provisionally added sorting. See m:Help:Sorting and the example Kingdom_of_the_Netherlands#Population.2C_area_and_currency for making it fully work.--Patrick 17:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These worked before, but now they don't, due to a change in the Javascript code.--Patrick 17:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I adapted MediaWiki:Common.js and put the footnotes in a separate column. Sorting works fine now. As a result, the page name List of countries by population density is now too modest, it is also a List of countries by population and a List of countries by area. These pages could perhaps be merged.--Patrick 14:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sorting

message: The into states that the list includes de facto sovereign states so we can safely add those that are listed on List of countries and List of sovereign states. I'll handle Transnistria but we should also add the others as well. For comparison purposes, the more information the list had, the better it is for researchers. - Mauco 20:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hadn't read this post of yours, but I happen to have just done this. sephia karta 16:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  De facto sovereign state 

message: The population and area for unrecognized states has already been factored in the figures for their "parent" countries. For example, the 2002 Census population of Georgia (rounded to 1000) is 4,372,000. The linear estimate for 2002 from the UN report is 4,622,000. There is thus an additional 250,000 added to the Georgia Census population. Also the area used is 69,700 sq km which includes Abhkazia and South Ossetia. Please don't rank these entries as this leads to double counting. --Polaron | Talk 15:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ranking for unrecognized countries 

message: Why do we have a listing for  "Channel Islands"?  The Channel Islands are not a country, they are two  separate crown dependencies, Jersey  and Guernsey.  The listing ought to be separated. john k 16:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The UN World Population Prospects report lists them this way. If there is an alternate source, we can separate them making clear the figures are from a different source. --Polaron | Talk 16:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh, weird.   It ought to be easy enough to derive a population density using the well known populations and areas of each crown dependency. Doing  basic arithmetic does not constitute original research. john k 16:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is true that Jersey and Guernsey are two separate crown dependencies and should be listed separately. Note, though, that Alderney and Sark are considered part of Bailiwick of Guernsey. Antipoeten 21:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Channel Islands? 

message: For the Republic of China, its abbreviation is ROC, but it reads PRC (which is mainland china) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.206.196.204 (talk) 17:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Republic of China 

message: What, if anything, is the rationale for ranking or not ranking overseas territories and similar things?  I can't really see why St. Martin and Mayotte are not ranked, while Hong Kong, Macau, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Aruba and even Martinique (which is a French overseas department, not - like St. Martin and Mayotte - an overseas collectivity, so I'd think it would be more logical to not rank Martinique than to not rank St. Martin and Mayotte). Ucucha 06:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Entries are what the UN World Population Prospects has individual data for. St. Martin is new so it is still included in Guadeloupe. Mayotte is considered by the UN as part of Comoros for statistical purposes. Including all the overseas territories in their parent sovereign state is one option but we should not exclude any inhabited self-governing territories from the list. --Polaron | Talk 12:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ranking 

message: DSuser and I have drafted a complete analysis of why it would be a good or a bad idea to include the EU in lists of countries in some form (either directly in the list or as a special note outside the list). We'd kindly invite all editors who are interested in the EU and/or lists of countries to take a look at Talk:European Union/inclusion in lists of countries, read all of the arguments presented and then state their opinion on what a sensible compromise might look like. Thanks! —Nightstallion 09:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  EU in lists