New Geography

Tag: world

  • Which Countries Would Fit Inside of Texas?

    Everyone knows that Texas is big. In the self-storage world, Texas would be a 10×30 storage unit, the biggest of the bunch. But many people (namely, Yankees and Europeans) may not realize just how massive the Lone Star State really is. How that at 261,231 square miles of land, Texas would be the 39th-largest country by land area in the world, coming in just behind Zambia and ahead of Myanmar. Since there are, give-or-take, roughly 200 countries in the world, that means that most of them are in fact smaller than Texas. In order to truly convey Texas’s size, we came up with a zany hypothetical scenario: if Texas were a storage unit, what countries could fit inside?

    Of course, using maps to illustrate size is a tricky matter, since most 2D map projections distort size in favor of shape. This includes the Mercator Projection used by Google Maps. Fortunately, we found thetruesize.com, a tool which runs on top of Google Maps and accounts for these distortions, allowing for accurate size comparisons. Now you can see exactly how these countries would fit inside of your Texas storage unit.

  • What’s in a (Metropolitan Area) Name?

    Only two of the world’s megacities (metropolitan areas or urban areas with more than 10 million people) have adopted names that are more reflective of their geographical reality than their former core-based names. It is likely that this will spread to other megacities and urban areas as the core jurisdictions that supplied the names for most become even less significant in the dispersing urban area.

    The first metropolitan area to make a change was Jakarta which became "Jabotabek," a title derived from the names of four major municipalities in the metropolitan area, Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. However, since that name did not include letters from the fifth largest municipality, Depok, the metropolitan area is sometimes called Jabodetabek. But adding a couple of letters for municipalities could lead to an exceedingly long name. For example, a new municipality of South Tangerang was recently created, representing the sixth municipality with nearly 1,000,000 people or more in Jabotabek. Presumably there will be those who will insist on calling the metropolitan area Jabodetabekst, a more Russian than Indonesian sounding name.

    Further, a large part of the metropolitan area is not in one of the six larger municipalities and instead is in one of the many smaller jurisdictions. There is thus the potential of the name even longer than the present world record holder, "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateahaumaitawhitiurehaeaturipuk-
    akapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu    ," which is the 105 letter name of a hill in the Hawks Bay area of New Zealand.

    The second mega-city with a new name is the Mexico City area. Mexico’s national statistics bureau, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) has designated the Mexico City metropolitan area as the "Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México," which translates to the Valley of Mexico metropolitan area.

    Alternate names for metropolitan areas or urban areas are not unusual. One of the earliest may have been the "Southland," a name apparently given to the Los Angeles area or Southern California many decades ago by the Los Angeles Times. There are Tri-State areas, such as New York and Cincinnati and Seattleites refer to the Puget Sound area. However all of these names have varying definitions depending upon who is using them and none directly corresponds to the boundaries of either an urban area or a metropolitan area.

    Perhaps better defined is the Randstad area of the Netherlands, which includes at least the urban areas of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. However this area is too large to be considered a single metropolitan area or a single urban area.

    Similarly, there is the Pearl River Delta, made up of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Macau. This area of virtually continuous urbanization is by far the largest in the world, but does not qualify as a metropolitan area or an urban area because each one of the jurisdictions is essentially a separate labor market. Further, despite the fact that Hong Kong and Macau are a part of China, the border controls between Shenzhen and Hong Kong and Zhuhai and Macau make it structurally impossible for those areas to merge into single labor markets.

    The Yangtze River Delta is another accurate title for a large area of urbanization. This includes the city/province of Shanghai, and up to 14 city/prefectures, such as Nanjing, Suzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou and Hangzhou. However, as in the case of the Pearl River Delta each of these represents a separate labor market and urban area.

  • Kudos to Houston Traffic from IBM

    IBM has released its annual “Commuter Pain Index,” which ranks traffic congestion in 20 metropolitan areas around the world. According to IBM, the Commuter Pain Index includes 10 issues: “1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8) traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.”

    Each metropolitan area is given a score between 0 and 100, with the highest score indicating the worst traffic congestion (See Table).

    IBM Commuter Pain Index: 2010
    Metropolitan Areas Ranked by Worst Traffic Congestion
    Rank Metropolitan Area Score (Worst to Best)
    1 Beijing 99
    1 Mexico City 99
    3 Johannesburg 97
    4 Moscow 84
    5 Delhi 81
    6 Sao Paulo 75
    7 Milan 52
    8 Buenos Aires 50
    9 Madrid 48
    10 London 36
    10 Paris 36
    12 Toronto 32
    13 Amsterdam 25
    13 Los Angeles 25
    15 Berlin 24
    16 Montreal 23
    17 New York 19
    18 Melbourne 17
    18 Houston 17
    20 Stockholm 15

    Favorable Urban Planning Characteristics Associated with Intense Traffic Congestion: The worst traffic congestion was recorded in the developing world metropolitan areas of Beijing, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, Delhi and Sao Paulo. In many ways, these metropolitan areas exhibit characteristics most admired by current urban planning principles. Automobile ownership and per capita driving is low. Transit carries at least 40% of all travel in each of the metropolitan areas. Yet traffic is intense. This is due to another urban planning “success,” objective, high population densities. Higher population densities are inevitably associated with greater traffic congestion (and more intense local air pollution), whether in the United States or internationally. All six of these metropolitan areas scored 75 or above, where a score of 100 would be the worst possible congestion.

    The next five metropolitan areas have accomplished nearly as much from an urban planning perspective. Milan, Buenos Aires, Madrid, London and Paris all achieve more than 20% transit market shares, and their higher urban densities also lead to greater traffic congestion. Each scores between 35 and 52.

    Traffic congestion is less in the next group, which includes Toronto, Los Angeles, Berlin, Amsterdam and Montreal. With the exception of Berlin, transit market shares are less, though the urban densities in all are above average US, Canadian and Australian levels. Amsterdam, the smallest metropolitan area among the 20, scores surprisingly poorly, since smaller urban areas are generally associated with lower levels of traffic congestion.

    The Least Congested Metropolitan Areas: Four metropolitan areas scored under 20, achieving the most favorable traffic congestion ratings. New York scores 19, with its somewhat lower density (the New York urban density is less than that of San Jose). Even lower density Melbourne and Houston score 17, tying for the second best traffic conditions. Stockholm achieves the best traffic congestion score, at 15, despite its comparatively high density. Stockholm is probably aided by its modest size which is similar to that of Orlando (Florida).

    The Houston Advantage: Perhaps the biggest surprise is Houston’s favorable traffic congestion ranking.

    • Houston has the lowest urban density of the 20 metropolitan areas.
    • Houston has the lowest transit market share, by far, at only 1%.
    • Houston also has the highest per capita automobile use among the IBM metropolitan areas.

    Yet Houston scored better than any metropolitan area on the list except for much smaller Stockholm. As late as 1985, Houston had the worst traffic congestion in the United States, according to the annual rankings of the Texas Transportation Institute. Public officials, perhaps none more than Texas Highway Commission Chair and later Mayor Bob Lanier led efforts to improve Houston’s road capacity, despite explosive population growth. Their initiatives paid off. By 1998, Houston had improved to 16th in traffic congestion in the United States. The population growth has been incessant, so much so that Houston has added more new residents since 1985 than live in Stockholm and more than half as many as live in Melbourne. While Houston had slipped to 11th in traffic congestion by 2007, the recent opening of a widened Katy Freeway and other improvements should keep the traffic moving in Houston better than in virtually all of the world’s other large metropolitan areas.

    Photo: Freeway in Houston

  • World Urban Areas and Population Projections

    Our colleague and frequent NewGeography contributor Wendell Cox of Demographia.com recently released the latest edition of his World Urban Areas and Population Projections publication.

    This 5th comprehensive edition includes:

    • Ranking of the largest world urban areas (over 2,000,000 population).
    • Population, urban land area and density estimates for all 763 identified urban areas with more than 500,000 population, comprising 49 percent of the world urban population.
    • Population, urban land area and density estimates for 1,370 urban areas of all sizes, comprising 53 percent of the world urban population.
    • Population projections for the world’s largest urban areas in 2025 & 2030 (over 2,000,000 population).
    • Summary of United Nations world population projections and summary by gross domestic product, purchasing power parity (from 4th Edition)
    • Charts on urban density and prosperity (from 2nd Edition)
    • Documentation

    Check it out.