Population Mountains by Matt Daniels
How to perceive the population of cities.
Here is New York City, a region of 18 million people. Each dot represents 1,000,000 square meters. Deeper shades of red represent more people. But there’s another way to look at NYC’s population. Let’s grow each dot into a 3D block. The taller the block, the more people. NYC’s population now resembles a mountainous terrain.
If we zoom out to view the entire world, it looks different than you might expect.
From my perspective (albeit a US-centric one), it was eye-opening to see how the world’s population is so unevenly distributed.
What stands out is each city’s form, a unique mountain that might be like the steep peaks of lower Manhattan or the sprawling hills of suburban Atlanta. When I first saw a city in 3D, I had a feel for its population size that I had never experienced before.
