The 15 Most Densely Populated Countries in the World

Published on October 28, 2014 at 4:37 am by Milagros Valdez in Lists

Would you like to know which are the most densely populated countries in the world? If that’s the case, just keep on reading and you’ll find out. Since you are probably lucky enough to live in a spacious country, chances are that your homeland won’t be mentioned in our countdown. But don’t feel left out, for this is not an unpleasant situation to find yourself in. On the contrary, you are probably enjoying the wide open spaces and greater distance between yourself and your neighbors, friends, and family than the people on this list enjoy; well, whether you consider that last item a blessing or a curse actually depends on your personal situation…

But some countries are very densely populated, which is not the same thing as being highly populated; population and population density are related but different notions. On the one hand, the population of a country comprises all the inhabitants of that place, all the people that live there. For example, Japan is one of the most populated countries in the world, its population being approximately 127,090,000 inhabitants (regarding Japan, you should check out our list on What To Know About Japan Before Going: The 7 Most Insane Things). Yet despite being located on just a tiny strip of islands in the Pacific Ocean and generally being considered one of the most densely populated countries in the world, Japan fails to make our list.

Moreover, the population of a country is calculated, or more precisely estimated or projected, by the local authority through a census. On the other hand, population density needs two figures to be calculated: the population of a certain territory (in number of inhabitants) and the area of that same territory (in square kilometers or square miles). So, population density is the number of people per unit of area and its result is expressed in population over square kilometers or miles (pop./km² or pop./mi²).

In compiling our list we used the latest figures of area, population and population density which were published by each country. Naturally, all these figures are not equally dated; some figures are older than others. But even so, using these and comparing them you can get the most recent countdown of the most densely populated countries. Furthermore, we did not take into account self-governing dependent territories nor recognized states with no or limited control over their territory. Some of the countries, dependencies or regions that were left out are: Macau, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Sint Maarten, Jersey, Saint Martin, the Gaza Strip, Aruba and Puerto Rico, among others. Nevertheless, we did include Taiwan for example, which is only a partially recognized state, being a territory still claimed by the People’s Republic of China as one of its provinces.

From Asia to Europe, from Oceania to the Americas, here are the most densely populated countries in the world. Let’s take a look at the countdown!