Taiwan, world's second most densely populated country

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

Anyone notice this in today’s Taipei Times? It sure still feels crowded as it ever was. The number is probably a bit skewed, though, since averages don’t account for where people really live - i.e. most of Taiwan’s population living on a narrow strip of land running between the Taipei basin down the west side of the island to Kaohsiung (it sure ain’t 629 people / km2 in the Central Mountain Range).

Slight rise in the population adds to that boxed feeling
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/02/05/2003291603

[quote]Taiwan’s population density stood at 629 per square kilometer at the end of last year, still the world’s second-highest among countries with a population of more than 10 million, according to a report yesterday by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.

The country’s population numbered 22.77 million at the end of last year, up 81,000 from a year before, the report said.

The natural increase (births minus deaths) in the population amounted to 66,000, while net migration accounted for an additional 15,000 people. An increase in the number of foreign spouses and a decrease in the number of people emigrating were the main reasons for the latter figure, the report said.

The population density of 629 per square kilometer was slightly higher than the figure of 627 for the end of 2004, the report said.

Among countries with a population of more than 10 million, only Bangladesh has a higher population density at 1,001.5 per square kilometer. South Korea is third with a population density of 486.5 per square kilometer, the report said.

Jhongli and Taoyuan City in Taoyuan County were the areas with the largest population increase, rising by 28,000 last year. [/quote]

2

And they all want a car. :loco:

3

And lakes. :smiling_imp:

4

Taiwan’s not a country. It’s a province. Ha, ha, ha.

Korea’s really densely populated, but they have a lot of high rises that makes up for it. High rises in the country. Kind of funny. The population density isn’t really noticeable here.

5

I always thought the population here was dense.

I’m just wondering how this statistic is determined. As was mentioned above. most of the population lies on the western strip. So does the statistic only include land that people are inhabiting which, if not, would in fact make the density greater but be more realistic of actual conditions or does it count all exisiting territory? And how would that affect countries such as Russia or Canada with large territories?

6

For the hell of it, I dug around and turned up a comparative population density chart at Wikipedia (their list includes city-states):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density

According to them, 2005 population density estimates in sq. km. include: the UK at 243, Ireland at 57, the US at 30, New Zealand at 15, Canada at 3, and Australia at 2.

7

No question about that.

8

From that link wiki states

So it’s not a very accurate statistic in that it doesn’t really reflect actual densities. I mean why should uninhabited land or water be considered?

9

I think it

10

[quote=“j99l88e77”]Taiwan’s not a country. It’s a province. Ha, ha, ha.
[/quote]

Sorry, Taiwan is not a country or a province, its just a place.

In Taichung over one third of the buildings are empty (especially near the train station), and they are building a lot of high appartment buildings in the area of Tiger City/Mitsukoshi (I wonder to what end). The goverment also hopes that there will be new development areas next to the high speed train stations (those that are far out of town) but that failed already in Taidong for the new “low speed” train station (which is deserted around it and now you have to take a 20 minute bus to get to it).

Taiwan sucks for environmental development. And most Taiwanese suck for development of their living enviroment . Three steps what you do if you are Taiwanese and bought land:

  1. You fill the entire space with concrete.
  2. You build a half hearted piece of betton to live in on it (no garage, its much more fun to wash your car every weekend). The space that would have been the garage you either rent to a restaurant or you use it as open “office” space.
  3. If thats not enough you ask a couple of ‘friends’ to build you a illegal ‘metal thing’ on top of it and maybe some plastic around your balcony so you can use it for laundry. You don’t care about isolation or proper shielded or double glass windows (its expensive) and hey, its a hot country after all.

There are variations of the above, but basically thats it.

11

Taiwan…is.

I are an existenial mofo…

12

And to think that I got woken up very early on Sunday morning by a rooster crowing. I live in Central Taiwan, in a city (density 543) on the 9th floor, and a f***ing rooster woke me up. That’d never happen to me in Oz (density 2). :laughing:

13

I think I’ll go to Taiwan in a couple of months. Five days in Taiwan. Hmm. I could go for some guotye and sweet n’ sour chicken.

I don’t think the population density is much of a problem in Taiwan. As far as walking around and stuff goes. I lived in the east though. Less dense there. Taipei was ok, but I imagine it’s more noticeable in the western parts of Taiwan. I’m assuming.

14

What’s really funny is all the scare stories in the news spreading panic over the falling birthrate. Somehow, these stories inevitably fail to mention how densely populated Taiwan is.

15

Well, in the west they worry about this cause of the retirement funds, which were based on the fact that there are more young people to pay for the old farts. Ludwig Erhard in Germany was strongly against such a system when it got installed there in 1957 and he’s proven right now I think :wink:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAYGO

But overaging is a real society problem, its not about space.

16

True, Taiwan’s not going to be much less crowded, but it is going to be much more grey. I remember reading that by 2051, a full third of Taiwan’s population will be over 65.

17

2051! I doubt this planet will be habitable by 2051. Thankfully the geniuses at Nasa will be ready to take a couple of us off to live on some distant planet by then. :loco:

18

Thing is, the government seems to think that begging women to marry younger and have more babies is the answer, rather than developing the infrastructure necessary to deal with an aging society.

19

I’ll probably be a tad too old to party by then, but who knows? What’s the outlook for Japan? Will they be averaging a nice and relatively younger 55?

HG

20

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.