Internet Data: Population vs Land Area
By M Bolding, C Roach, B Horn
Use the following Internet source, The CIA World Fact Book (11 May 2004), to answer these questions regarding population versus land area for China and the United States.
What is the average population density of China in people per square kilometer (round your answer to the nearest whole number)?
How many square meters are in one square kilometer?
Using the total available land area, what would be the average population density of China in people per square meter? Express your answer in scientific notation rounded to the nearest hundredth.
If 15% of the land in China is used for agriculture, what would be the new population density in people per square meter? Express your answer in scientific notation to the nearest hundredth.
Using your answer to the previous question, how many people would live in every 10,000 m² in China?
Using your answer to question #5, how much room in square meters would each person in China have? Round you answer to the nearest whole number.
Do your calculations seem to contradict the impression that we have of China being overcrowded? Give a possible explanation for this discrepancy.
Navigate the website to find the total available land area for the United States and determine how many more times bigger China's land area is to the land area of the United States. Round your answer to the nearest hundredth.
Under the Comparative Areas section in the information about the United States, the website states that the United States is slightly larger than China. Why did we not get the same result?