The Netherlands are no longer the most densely populated European country, the BBC and the Telegraph reported yesterday. We have been overtaken by England, which has 395 people per square kilometre, two more than our 393. The United Kingdom as a whole is a lot emptier, at only 253 people per square kilometre.

I’m not entirely sure these numbers are correct, though. First of all, the Telegraph article compares the British population density for 2008 to the Dutch population density for 2005. At the latest population figure reported by the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, our population density is 396 people/km². Also, this density uses an area for the Netherlands that includes the IJsselmeer. That might be the official way to do it (since it’s an inland lake), but it underestimates the actual population density on land by about 25%. England’s total area includes a much smaller fraction of water.

Another point of concern is the claim in the Telegraph article that our population density decreased from 395 people/km² in 2002 to 393 people/km² in 2005. That makes no sense: our population grew by some 140,000 people over those three years and our total area certainly didn’t increase.

England can be Europe’s most crowded country as far as I’m concerned. It would be nice, though, if the media spent a little more time checking their facts before claiming that it is.

Interesting factoid: Aruba, one of the Caribbean islands belonging to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is more densely populated than the Netherlands itself.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 09:09 and is filed under Random musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.