Over 3,000,000 people die in the U.S. alone every year. I get that there are other options than burying like cremation, but it seems logical that we would have a shortage of cemetery space. Further, you don’t see cemeteries expanding or new ones being built.
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6 decades ago the cremation rate in the US was around 6%, today it’s around 55%. The expect burial rate is around 36%. So right there that means that only around 1 million people out of your 3 million will be buried.
The average grave is 8 x 2.5 feet or 20 square feet. 20 million square feet is about .7 square miles, so it’s not actually that much space. Also the US is very very big, only space within cities is at a premium.
That being said, there’s no guarantee that when you are buried you’ll stay there forever.
A lot of cemeteries lease out the space for anywhere from 15 to 100 years. Once the lease is up, and the descendants aren’t willing to pay for a renewal the grave is often re-used for someone else.
Only people of high importance or notoriety, or people buried in privately owned grave sites will typically stay forever. Even then if a grave site is in the way of important construction there’s processes for digging up the remains and allowing the construction.
Arlington National Cemetery is a good example of a graveyard that’s permanent but is rapidly running out of room. Today they only accept cremated remains, and within a few decades will either have to change their practices, expand, or close. It’s possible Arlington will close leaving space only for VIPs like Presidents and Medal of Honor ~~winners~~ recipients, while an alternate site is prepared for future growth but we will see what they decide to do.
As a point for your example, in Japan burial space has become such a problem that cremation is now mandated by law for all except emperors. You can’t be buried even if you wanted too because space is such a problem. This practice is accepted in Japan because of its large Buddhist population for which cremation is expected practice.
In Muslim countries however burial is mandatory.
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