Five Brothers and a War

Geography—Population & Density

In 1700 AD, the population of Holland was fewer than 1.8 million. In 1800 it had grown slightly to almost 2 million. One hundred years later, it had grown by more than 2 ½ to 5.1 million, and in the 20 th Century it tripled to more than 16 million.

Population of Holland 1700-2010

20,000,000

15,000,000

10,000,000

0 5,000,000

Holland is a very densely populated nation. Within the context of the entire world there are 134,940,000 km 2 , or about 52,100,000 miles 2 , with 7.2 billion inhabitants. That equates to 53 people per km 2 or 137 people per mile 2 . Within Holland, there are 406 and 1,052 respectively. That makes Holland one of the most dense and urbanized nations on earth. In fact, aside from tiny islands, principalities and nations, such as Hong Kong, Macau, St. Barths, St. Maartin, Vatican City, Bermuda, et cetera, Holland follows only Bangladesh (1,091/2,828), Taiwan (647/1,676), and South Korea (503/1,303) as the most dense among nations with populations greater than 11 million. For comparison purposes, Canada is the second lowest, at 3.6 and 9 respectively (Australia is 3 and 8). Being such a small and densely-populated meant that Holland’s land use and protection were paramount and therefore water management was critical to the point that without human intervention, most of Holland would be uninhabitable. Management of water has always had two components: saltwater and fresh water. Very counterintuitively, even with the extremely dense, urbanized geography, Holland is also one of the very top agricultural exporters in the world, ranking within the top five in most measures, and as high as second, behind only the United States in some reports. Also counterintuitively, Holland has been growing in terms of landmass over the past thousand years. By the 9th Century, the Dutch began cultivating their boggy, marshy land by draining it. This resulted in shrinkage, where some sections of the country were lowered by up to 15 meters, meaning that much of the land was below sea level.

holland

Five Brothers and a War

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