According to Delanceyplace.com, six hundred years ago, somewhere around 1400, the population of the earth was 350 million, or slightly more than the current population of the United States. Most lived on just 4.25 million square miles, or barely 7 percent of the earth's dry land, that portion being the most suitable for agriculture. Those densely populated regions of earth corresponded to just fifteen highly developed civilizations, the most notable being (from east to west) Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Islamic West Asia, Europe, Aztec, and Inca.Today, 70 percent of the world's six billion people live on those same 4.25 million square miles.
According to my calculations, that results in 82 people per square mile in 1400 and 988 people per square mile today. By comparison, today New York City has about 400 people per square mile. In 1400, my guess is New York City (though it hadn't yet been so named) had about 40 (probably of the Lenape persuasion) people per square mile, and who knows how many when the Europeans started poking around with some vigor two hundred years later.
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