Odds are that someone else has already measured and surveyed this area. Look for census data, read an encyclopedia, or run a web search. Find out whether the area has any set boundaries. If not, you’ll need to define them yourself. A neighborhood, for instance, may not be listed in the census, so you’ll need to draw the borders yourself.
If you are calculating the population density for an area that has not already been recorded, you may need to count the population yourself. This might include a colloquially-defined urban neighborhood, for instance, or a population of kangaroos in a section of the Australian Outback. Try to get as accurate a number as possible.
For easy Imperial-to-metric conversions, visit http://www. metric-conversions. org.
The unit of land area should be square miles or square kilometers. You can use square feet or meters if you are finding the density of a smallish space. For most professional and academic demographic purposes, though, you’ll need to use the standard square miles or kilometers. The unit of population density is people per unit of area. For instance, 2000 people per square mile.
The unit of land area should be square miles or square kilometers. You can use square feet or meters if you are finding the density of a smallish space. For most professional and academic demographic purposes, though, you’ll need to use the standard square miles or kilometers. The unit of population density is people per unit of area. For instance, 2000 people per square mile.
Even if you calculate the population density of an area as dense as a large city, the resulting figure will not tell you much about the differences between individual neighborhoods. You may need to find the density for various area scales in order to fully understand a place.
Say that you calculate the population density of a county that is home to a huge amount of open land and national forest, but also to a very large city. The population density of the county at large will not tell you much about the density of the city: the actual space where people live. Remember that population density is just an average. It may not correspond exactly to the population count of an area. If not, consider why. Try calculating the density for a smaller area within the original area. [8] X Research source
