The global demography project

Type Report
Title The global demography project
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 1995
Publisher Citeseer
URL http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.228.5609&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Abstract
Demographic information is usually provided on a national basis. But we know that countries are ephemeral phenomena. As
an alternate scheme one might use ecological zones rather than nation states. But there is no agreement as to what these zones should
be. By way of contrast global environmental studies using satellites as collection devices yield results indexed by latitude and
longitude. Thus it makes sense to assemble the terrestrial arrangement of people in a compatible manner. This alternative is explored
here, using latitude/longitude quadrilaterals as bins for population information. This data format also has considerable advantage for
analytical studies. The report is in three parts. Part I gives the motivation and several possible approaches. Ways of achieving the
objective include, among others, simple centroid sorts, interpolation, or gridding of polygons. In Part 11 the results to date of putting
world boundary coordinates together with estimates of the number of people is described. The estimated 1994 population of two
hundred seventeen countries, subdivided into nineteen thousand thirty two polygons, have been assigned to five minute by five minute
quadrilaterals covering the world. The grid extends from latitude fifty seven degrees south to seventy two degrees north latitude, and
covers three hundred and sixty degrees of longitude. Just under thirty one percent of the (1548 by 4320) grid cells are populated. The
number of people in these countries is estimated to be five billion six hundred eighteen million, spread over one hundred thirty two
million square kilometers of land. Part III describes needed extensions, and the appendices contain detailed information on our results
with maps and data sources.

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