If the world population of 5.5 billion people were gathered together in one spot, how large an area would we cover?
Allow each person a 2 foot by 2 foot patch of ground, and give your answer in square miles.
Solution to the Problem:
We would need 789.141414... square miles (about the size of Jacksonville, Florida). The total area of Jacksonville is 874.3 square miles, 757.7 square miles excluding water. The population of Jacksonville is 736,000.
Multiply 5.5 billion by 4 square feet to get 22,000,000,000 square feet.Then divide this number by the number of square feet in a square mile
(which is 5,280 x 5,280 or 27,878,400). Your answer is 789.14 square miles.
Larry Scwartz sent in the following:
Note that if these 5.5 billion people stood in a giant square, the person in the
middle would have to walk more than 14 miles
(and pass more than 37 thousand people) to get outside the square.
However the current world population of slightly over 6.6 Billion folks with each one occupying only 4 sq. ft. would occupy 946.97 sq miles. Even at that they could all fit into the state of Rhode Island with about a hundred sq. mi. to spare!
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1. Walt Arrison | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
2. Magdy Essafty | Alexandria, Egypt |
3. Kunal Singh | Kendriya Vidyalaya School Happy Valley Shillong, India |
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