The most densely populated countries in the world

Which are the 20 most densely populated countries?

Small places dominate the list. Of the 20 densest countries, 8 have less than 1,000 km² of land, and only 4 have more than 20 million people.

Monaco, Singapore, Bahrain and Malta are city-states or small islands where the whole country is built up. The Maldives packs its people onto about 200 inhabited islands with almost no land between them. Bangladesh is the first country on the list with a large population, and it is the one to remember. It has 176 million people, more than Russia, on an area smaller than Greece.

Palestine, Lebanon, Rwanda and Burundi are the densest places in their regions. South Korea is denser than Japan (516 against 326), and India, at 445, is denser than the Netherlands, which is usually called the crowded corner of Europe.

Which large countries are the most densely populated?

Density among the countries with more than 50 million people is a different list, and a more useful one, because it describes how most of the world's population actually lives.

Bangladesh is more than twice as dense as anything else on this list. India, the Philippines and Vietnam are in the 300 to 450 range. The United Kingdom is the densest large country in Europe, at 285, and Germany is at 233. The United States has 35 people per km², China 147 and Brazil 25.

Which are the least densely populated countries?

Mongolia, at 2.3 people per km², is the emptiest country on Earth, with 3.6 million people on 1.56 million km². Australia, Namibia, Iceland, Guyana and Suriname follow, all below 4 per km².

The ten emptiest countries hold 18 percent of the world's land and 1.1 percent of its people. Most of that land is desert, tundra or forest. Canada is seventh from the bottom, and about 80 percent of Canadians live within 150 km of the US border.

Why does density matter more than area?

Area tells you how much land a country has. Density tells you how many people share it, which is what decides the price of housing, the length of a commute, how much farmland there is per person, and how far a hospital is. Two countries with the same population can be a hundred times apart. Bangladesh and Russia both have between 140 and 180 million people, and Russia has 141 times the land per person.

Density is also uneven inside countries. Egypt's average is 118 per km², but about 95 percent of Egyptians live in the Nile valley and delta, where the density is more like 1,500. Australia's average is 3.6, and Sydney's is about 450. The country figure is a starting point, not the whole story.

How do we count?

Density is the UN's 2025 population estimate divided by total area, including lakes and rivers, from the UN Statistics Division and the CIA World Factbook. Using land area only would raise Canada, Sweden and Finland a little. Territories are not included, which is why Macao (about 21,000 per km²), Hong Kong (about 6,800) and Gibraltar are missing. Vatican City, at about 1,800 per km², would be 5th, but it publishes no GDP figure and is not on the map. More on the data.