• gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org
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    19 hours ago

    Yeah, Niger is desert, basically. There’s a bit of sahel at one end, and of course oases, but it’s not a populous place, because of course it isn’t.

    that ok, i understand. but how do you explain that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has 48 pp/km²? that one is surely no desert.

    • cameroon 39.7 pp/km²
    • Central African Republic 8.6 pp/km²
    • Gabon 10 pp/km²

    these are all central africa, surely no sahara desert there.

    again, germany, 230 pp/km² for comparison.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 hours ago

      As you can see on your map, Germany is actually really dense, not typical. Europe has had an easy few centuries, and that, alongside the UK, is the densest part of Europe. If you pick a random patch of civilisation-friendly terrain, it has a greater than 50% chance to be yellow, which is like the empty central parts of Spain.

      Looking over the list on Wikipedia, Germany is number 63 out of 245. What’s ahead of it is mostly island and city states, with a few other major nations in the mix.

      CAR is pretty empty, and that might be down to jungle. Why the jungle would be hard to live in, once you cut down a few trees, is unclear to me as a Canadian (maybe poor soil?). Plus, there are populous jungle regions, like in SE Asia. But, there definitely is a pattern.

      DRC south of it is mostly yellow, and to the south-east you hit the dense African Great Lakes region. The white patch in southern Africa is the Kalahari, another desert.