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Seems related to the fact that you can draw a surprisingly-small circle over part of Asia and have more people inside the circle, than out. Human geography is v
by corrral 4y ago
Seems related to the fact that you can draw a surprisingly-small circle over part of Asia and have more people inside the circle, than out. Human geography is very uneven.
- ninju 4y agoI believe you are referring to the Valeriepieris circle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle#/media/File:Valeriepieris_circle.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle#/media/Fi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle
- corrral 4y agoYep, that's the one. Ballpark 7% of the Earth's surface, or 15% of the land-surface area (guesstimate based on the whole circle being about 22% of the land surface area—but much of the circle is over water). Over 50% of the population.
- Beldin 4y agoOne of the claims of the circle was that over half of it was water. So then your guesstimate can be lowered to less than 11% of land surface area.
- mc32 4y agoLots of things on Earth are unevenly distributed. Mineral deposits, water, fertile land, mild climates…
- firebaze 4y agoQuite probably only if we're ignoring the z-axis (depth), at least when talking over minerals. I think it will be a game-changer if a few km of rock won't be a hindrance anymore. If that ever comes, that is.
- mc32 4y agoSome elements are kind of well distributed but not others: gold for example, or minerals or hydrocarbons, or even wind.
- mr_toad 4y agoThere’s a huge amount of gold (and other stuff) dissolved in seawater. Something like 20 million tons of it. The trouble is that it’s too evenly distributed. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gold-ocean-sea-hoax-science-water-boom-rush-treasure https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gold-ocean-sea-hoax-sc...
- joebob42 4y ago> elements > Wind I know you know and this is just stupid pedantry but it made me cackle
- bigiain 4y ago> Lots of things on Earth are unevenly distributed. Mineral deposits, water, fertile land, mild climates… ... the future.
- spiralx 4y agoDoesn't 80% of the world's population live within 100km of the sea as well. And I'd guess most of the remainder live close to major rivers and lakes.
- quickthrower2 4y agoMakes sense. Rivers are the original infra.
- hanoz 4y agoAre you proposing The Spiralx Donut?
- eyelidlessness 4y agoOne might be advised not to go chasing waterfalls, but those are also typically close to the same rivers and lakes.
- amelius 4y agoProbably more related to the fact that if you look at the globe from above the Pacific, you see mostly water: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globe_-_Pacific_Ocean_space_view.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globe_-_Pacific_Ocea...
- Zenst 4y agoHandy to know if ever challanged to draw a picture of earth as seen from space.
- ninefathom 4y agoPrecisely - more than anything else, this article reminded me just how much of our planet is covered by the Pacific Ocean.
- paxys 4y agoSure, but there's still a big difference between 50% and 99%. In this case it wasn't just about population, most landmass was also covered.
- corrral 4y agoWell, right, it's the intuition/viewpoint that takes it to "huh, neat and a little surprising, but believable" rather than "no fucking way!" that's similar, I'd say. If you're familiar with one of these (or other, similar) bits of trivia, the other one's probably more believable on your first encounter with it, because you've already been exposed to the underlying insight that makes it possible.
- BbzzbB 4y agoAnother factoid in this vein: more than half of Canada's population lives South of the USA's Northern border.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoI think you should specify the northern border of the contiguous states. Otherwise, I bet 99% of Canada’s population lives south of Alaska northern border.
- BbzzbB 4y agoI hesitated to be more specific, but figured (probably wrongly so, should always be explicit when stating things like this) that it's implicitly obvious it's about the ~49th parallel border. In fact you can draw the line well below that border[0]. Another way to put it is that half of Canadian's population lives ~between Toronto and Montréal. 0: https://i1.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/canada-population-line-map.png https://i1.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/c...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoReally cool map! Based on the map, another way to put it, is: Most Canadians live south of Seattle.