DIRECTIONS: The 120 largest cities in the world, each drawn as a dot sized by how many people live in it.
the dashed line is the equator · city positions and populations from Natural Earth
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Question about the map
Your answer
1.
name three large areas of land with almost no dots at all
2.
which continent has the most dots?
3.
are there more dots above the equator or below it?
4.
roughly what fraction of the dots are above it?
The Crowded Half
The Shape of the World · Page 2 of 3
DIRECTIONS: Read the count, then answer.
Of the 243 cities in this data, 192 of them — 79% — are north of the equator, and 17 of the twenty largest.
Counting by latitude band:
Latitude band
How many of the largest cities
60° to 90° (north)
2
30° to 60° (north)
91
0° to 30° (north)
99
-30° to 0° (south)
41
-60° to -30° (south)
10
Look back at the world map on page 1. Suggest the simplest reason so many more people live north of the equator.
The band from 30° to 60° north holds a great many of them. Say what is in that band, and what is at the same latitudes in the south.
What the Dots Do Not Say
The Shape of the World · Page 3 of 3
DIRECTIONS: This map shows cities, not people. Read, then answer.
Millions of people spread across farms and villages, with no big city,
show up as almost nothing. For most of history that was nearly everybody.
Name one way this map would mislead somebody who thought it showed where all the people are.
The same data drawn on a Mercator map would put these dots in different places relative to the land. Using social-09-world-geography sheet 10, say what would happen to the empty north and why that matters here.