Countries by Population density (people per sq. km of land area)

Ranking 2023

Values shown in km².

Analysis

Population density measures how many people occupy each square kilometer of land in a given country or territory. The World Bank defines it as midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers, where population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship — except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country's total area excluding inland water bodies. The indicator code is EN.POP.DNST, with data from 2023. This ranking covers 215 countries and territories, all reporting data from within the last seven years, with 100% of data points classified as official quality. The dataset contains 40 extreme outliers beyond three standard deviations, reflecting the wide variance in the data, which ranges from 0.14 to 20,569.70 people per square kilometer — a spread of over 14,847,050%.

The top of the ranking is dominated by small, urbanized territories with limited land area. Macao SAR, China ranks first at 20,569.70 people per km², and Monaco ranks second at 18,692.90. Singapore ranks third at 8,241.85 and Hong Kong SAR, China ranks fourth at 7,177.24. Gibraltar ranks fifth at 3,847.10. Among sovereign states with substantial populations, Bangladesh ranks ninth at 1,319.18 people per km², making it the most densely populated large country by population in the dataset. South Korea ranks 23rd at 529.84 and the Netherlands ranks 22nd at 530.95, the two densest countries in continental Europe and East Asia respectively outside the city-state category.

The middle of the ranking includes a varied mix of geographies. India ranks 24th at 483.68 people per km², placing it among the most densely settled large nations. Nigeria ranks 52nd at 250.21, Uganda 54th at 242.65, and Germany 56th at 238.35. In the lower half, the United States ranks 165th at 36.82 people per km², and Brazil ranks 180th at 25.26. Russia ranks 202nd at 8.78, reflecting its enormous land mass relative to population. Australia ranks 213th at 3.47, Mongolia 214th at 2.23, and Greenland last at 0.14. A notable placement is Egypt at rank 92 with 115.06 people per km²: because population density is calculated against total land area rather than habitable area, countries with large uninhabitable regions such as deserts can appear less dense than their settled zones would suggest.

This metric has meaningful limitations. Population density is a national average and does not reflect internal distribution; a country's population may be heavily concentrated in a small urban zone while vast areas remain nearly empty, as is the case in Egypt, Kazakhstan (rank 204, 7.53 per km²), and Algeria (rank 186, 19.38 per km²). The de facto population definition excludes refugees not permanently settled in their country of asylum, which can undercount actual residents in countries hosting large displaced populations. Small territories and city-states dominate the top ranks by design, since their numerators are large relative to their minimal land area, making direct comparisons to large sovereign states of limited interpretive value. Year-over-year volatility in this dataset is low at 1.5% on average, suggesting stable reporting, but individual country figures depend on the accuracy of both population estimates and land area measurements, which can vary by source.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code EN.POP.DNST, for the reference year 2023. The metric is defined as midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship — except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country's total area excluding inland water bodies. The ranking covers 215 countries and territories, meeting the minimum coverage threshold of 80. All 215 entries (100%) have data from within the last seven years, and 100% of data points are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. The dataset contains 40 extreme outliers identified at the three standard deviation threshold, consistent with the wide distributional range of 0.14 to 20,569.70 people per km². Average year-over-year change is 1.5%, well within the 50% volatility threshold, indicating stable data over time. A higher density value is treated as a higher rank in this index.

Sources

• World Bank