Wealth inequality. It’s on everyone’s mind right now. As a small group of billionaires engages in
a race to become the first trillionaire, it can feel like everyone else is being left behind.
But while their wealth is measured in stock prices and company acquisitions,
for many people around the world, wealth means something much more practical - land.
For millennia, being rich and powerful meant having a huge plot of land - and usually,
a large group of subjects. When the Roman Emperor Augustus was the richest man in the world,
it wasn’t hard to see why - he had recently just acquired all of Egypt!
And today, there is a lot of land to go around. Don’t we all deserve a slice?
The Earth is massive, but the majority of it isn’t available for purchase - it’s underwater and the
fish have dibs. 70.8% of the Earth’s surface is underwater, and it keeps life on Earth possible -
but it’s not exactly good for development. That leaves the remaining 29.2% of the globe, just
over 57.5 million square miles of real estate. Not all of it is equally appealing - some of it,
like Antarctica, is frozen year-round. Others, like the Australian Outback, can get deadly hot
during the summer. And some areas are swamps filled with alligators and Florida men.
And the more desirable areas are usually snapped up quickly.
So who owns all that land? In the United States, the federal government controls over a quarter
of it - roughly 640 million acres. Surprisingly, not all the land in the United States is owned
by Americans - it’s estimated that 35.2 million acres, or around 2.5% of US land,
is owned by foreign investors. Two percent of the total land is deeded to tribal reservations,
while nine percent is owned by state and local governments. Sixty percent is privately owned,
but the biggest land-owner in the United States is telecom magnate John Malone,
who owns a whopping 2.2 million acres. Around the world,
it’s a similar story - governments and big businesses own more land than anyone else.
And there are a lot of people on Earth that would love a slice of that land.
There are currently just over 7.9 billion people on the planet - and growing! There
are over 385,000 people born every day, although that’s offset by around 178,000
people dying every day. So the population keeps increasing, and they’ll all need a place to
stay. That’s led people to ask - what would happen if everyone got an equal plot of land?
With so much surface area and a lot of countries that have a lot more land than they have people,
surely the world would be better off that way - right?
It’s complicated - just like real estate law.
There is definitely enough land for everyone on Earth to get a little plot. In fact, currently,
every person on Earth would be entitled to around .0072 square miles of land. That’s less than
one-hundredth of a square mile, which doesn’t sound like much - but it’s over two hundred
thousand square feet. To put this in perspective, a football field is around 57,600 square feet - so
you’re getting the equivalent of four football fields to make your home on. Sounds like a pretty
sweet deal! Why aren’t we carving up the world to give us our little slice of paradise right now?
Well, there are a lot of reasons.
For one thing, an equivalent plot of land could be incredibly valuable or completely worthless
based on its location. A prime piece of farmland in Iowa would be a gold mine, but an equal share
of land at the heart of the Nevada deserts would be barely habitable for a large part of the year.
Not to mention, the face of the world is shifting. Much of the world’s surface area is coastline,
and that changes constantly as sea levels rise and the climate changes. Your prime
island getaway could be underwater in a few years. Earthquakes and volcanoes reshape the
Earth regularly as well - in fact, volcanoes even give birth to new islands occasionally.
And then there’s another big problem - we need unpopulated space.
The idea of subdividing the world individually might sound appealing,
but when you look at the world around you, it becomes clear how much of the world doesn’t have
anyone living there by design. Huge swaths of the United States are used for growing crops
and for grazing land for cattle, and planting humans in it every .0072 miles could massively
disrupt the supply chain. And then there’s getting that food to people - via the long,
winding network of roads that connects every location in the United States.
No one’s volunteering to live in that area. This pattern will continue around the world,
as almost every country’s layout is designed for infrastructure rather than maximum living space.
And we’re also not alone on this planet.
Huge swaths of the land area of the earth are home to countless species,
some endangered and some even undiscovered. Scientists are uncovering new species every
year - mostly insects, but also birds, amphibians, reptiles, and even mammals.
Many of these animals have been untouched by humans and live in complex ecosystems like the
Amazon rainforest or the jungles of Southeast Asia - and introducing humans into that area
could disrupt their ability to survive. Not to mention, some species might not be too friendly
neighbors. Go ahead - if you want to move into the Amazon, I’m sure that panther is friendly.
But there’s another possible way to divide the land.
How many countries are there in the world? The current official number is either 193 or 195,
depending on who you ask - although some territories are asking for inclusion as well.
The United Nations recognizes 193 official countries and two observer states, plus two
states with some international recognition exist but aren’t members of the UN - Kosovo and Taiwan.
And they vary massively in terms of who controls those 57.5 million square miles of land.
The largest country in the world, Russia, takes up a huge part of two continents,
Europe and Asia. While it was even larger during the heyday of the USSR, today it
covers a whopping 6.6 million square miles of land - more than a tenth of all the land on the planet.
Of course, a big chunk of that land doesn’t belong to any country at all.
The entity with the second largest portion of the Earth’s land isn’t recognized as a country -
because there aren’t any people on it! It’s Antarctica, including the frozen south pole,
which is occupied only by wildlife and a small number of visiting scientists.
For a lot of countries, it’s a much tighter fit.
The smallest official country in the world is Monaco, a European city-state known for
its rich nightlight and a destination for business travelers. Its entire borders,
including a coastline, contain a tiny .78 miles, smaller than many cities around the world.
But there’s one observer state even smaller.
Vatican City. The home base of the Roman Catholic Church and where the Pope lays
his head every night. This tiny enclave in Italy only spans .19 square miles,
and could easily be walked in a day without much difficulty.
It’s a world of the haves and the have-nots out there - and
a lot of people would love it to change.
Combining the five largest countries in the world - Russia, Canada, China,
the United States, Brazil, and Australia, plus Antarctica - will get you well over half
the world’s total land area. By contrast, the total area of Disney World in Orlando, Florida
is 42.47 miles. That’s larger than the total land area of five countries - Vatican City,
Monaco, Nauru, Tuvalu, and San Marino.
So what would it look like if the playing field was evened? What would these countries look like?
If the world’s entire surface area was split evenly between the 195 states recognized by
the United Nations, every country would have approximately 292,000 square miles of real estate.
To put into perspective just how much bigger some countries are than others,
this new universal country size would be larger than all but 36 countries today, and every country
would have a new portion of real estate just a little smaller than the nation of Turkey.
And this would lead to some changes for these countries - some more than others.
Let’s look at how it would affect the biggest country in the world, Russia. The massively
oversized Russia is also the ninth most populated country in the world, with a population of 146
million people. But it’s not making use of a lot of that real estate - the majority of Russia’s
territory is in Siberia, an often frozen and desolate area of northern Asia. How frozen and
desolate? During the Soviet era, it was frequently used as a prison camp for those who violated the
law or angered the leadership. Somehow, we don’t think it’s a growth area. But could
all of Russia’s citizens live within their new borders? Probably - because Russia has 25 million
fewer people than Bangladesh, which is actually around one-sixth the size of the new borders.
And some countries would find their situations massively improved.
South Korea is the 27th most populated country in the world with around 51 million people,
but it’s the 107th largest country, making up only half of a small peninsula hanging off China.
Its land area is only 38,690 square miles, which means it would see its size grow by
a whopping factor of eight if every country had an equal share of the world’s land. The country
is known for its dense cities and high-rise buildings and would see a lot of room to grow.
Some countries, meanwhile, are sitting on a lot of extra land.
Canada’s really big! There’s even a song about it. The northern country has a whopping 3.5 million
square feet of land space, and much of it is an unspoiled wilderness. You might see more moose
than people in some areas - because Canada is only the thirty-seventh largest country by population,
with 38 million people. That’s just under the population of one state in the United States,
California. Close to half of Canada’s population lives in one province, Ontario,
and almost a tenth lives in the city of Toronto alone. If shrunk down to the
new universal country size, Canada would have no problem getting by - although the
people taking over the rest of the land might want to learn how to handle moose.
But what would happen to the most populated country in the world?
It’s almost hard to believe - two countries, China and India, contain over 35% of the world’s
population and each has more than four times the population of any other country on Earth.
Both have a lot of space and need it. India is the smaller of the two and
would see its land area reduced by over 75%. China would lose more than 90% of
its land area and have to fit more than 1.4 billion people into 292,000 square miles.
Is it possible? Based on the proportions of other countries like Bangladesh,
yes - but both countries would need to invest in a lot of high-rises.
But let’s look at the two countries that hit the jackpot.
Monaco would go from .78 square miles to 295,000, and its regular population is only 38,350 people.
That means that every person would get more than seven square miles of land all to themselves
- which means a lot of space to build the craziest casino cities the world has ever seen!
But in one state, the distinction is even more extreme.
Vatican City is tiny, at only.19 square miles - but it’s still not crowded. At only 825 regular
residents, it’s really more of the world’s largest monastery than a country. Now imagine it became
much larger. If Vatican City had the territory of the new equal country size, every single
citizen of the city-state would receive a plot of land of around 353 square miles. That means that
every Cardinal, Nun, and Bishop in the territory would essentially have their own country larger
than the countries of Bahrain or Tonga. That’s a long way to walk for an audience with the Pope.
For more on the world’s population dynamic, check out “What If The US Had
the Same Population as China?” or watch this video instead.