For example, according to my research, California is the “most populous” state in the country but New Jersey shows up as the “most densely populated” state. I thought the latter essentially meant “the state with the biggest population” (same as the former). How do they differ? Are they related in any way?
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One looks at population, the other looks at population per area of land. Imagine two neighboring lots — one lot is five acres, the other is one acre. On the 5 acre lot live 10 people. On the one acre lot, 4 people live. The larger lot is more populous — 10 vs. 4 people living on it. But the smaller lot is more densely populated — 4 people per acre instead of 2 people per acre on the bigger lot.
Population density is a comparison between how many people live in a given area and the size of that area. California has a lot of people, but it also has a lot of land. It’s about 18 times as large, but it only has about four times as many people. That’s why New Jersey’s population density is higher.
Population density shows how much people live within a specific spatial scope, for example within a square kilometer.
For example, Russia and Bangladesh have a similar amount of population, but since Bangladesh is much smaller the population is much more densely packed.
Density is measured by dividing the population with total land area. Population is just a measurement of how many people there are.
Following the example from above, and using this formula, we can calculate that a country with 1.000.000 residents, and with a teritory of 50.000 square kilometers, has a density of 20 people per square kilometer.
Bearing all this in mind, you can come to conclusion that while California is the most populous, it has lower density because of its larger land area – its citizens are not so densely packed as are people from NJ
A brand new pack of 10 crayons with them all crammed in there tight is more densely populated than an old 48 pack of crayons where half of them are missing (but, with 24 it is more populous).
It is a matter of units.
Population is a number of individuals, a count.
Density is the population divided by the area occupied.
So, California is the most populous, but has an important surface compared to New Jersey. Thus, the latter is the most densely populated.
Most populous: the highest number. Most densely populated: the highest number in a given area.
California has a lot of people in total, but it’s a very big state in terms of land area, so those people are spread out. Hence it is the “most populous”.
New Jersey has fewer people in total, but it’s a very small state in terms of land, so those people are packed close together. Hence it is the “most densely populated”.
They are related in that they both are measurements of number of people, a population. “Most Populous” is simple the measurement of number of people, bigger = more people. “Most Densely Populated” adds in a second factor, the physical area of the state. So while California might have more people, it’s also a massive state. New Jersey is a much smaller state, area wise, so the people it does have are much more tightly packed in with each other.
Imagine you have two states. One has 10 residents and a landmass of 10 square miles. The other has 5 residents but only 1 square mile of land.
The first is the most populous (10 vs 5 residents), while the second is the more densely populated because it has 5 people per square mile compared to the other state that only has 1 person per square mile.
Has to do with the amount of people in one space rather than the amount of people.
So the amount of people relative to the amount of space. Basically, there’s a ton of people in a small state like NJ so the population is dense.
CA just has a sheer amount of people, and just population # doesn’t take into account relative to the amount of space.
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