Nearly 60% of the world’s 8 billion population lives in Asia: a vast continent sprawling over 44 million km², home to sprawling megacities, high-altitude deserts, the world’s biggest plateau, and impenetrable rainforests.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao visualizes Asia’s population patterns using data from WorldPop - a research group based out of the University of Southampton that tracks population growth and movement across the globe.

A spike on the map denotes higher population density.

Other figures in this article are sourced from World Population Review (population numbers) and the World Bank (area).

Immediately the map visualizes at impressive scale a rather well-known fact: that India and China together account for 35% of the world’s population just by themselves.

Pakistan (ranked 4th in population) and Bangladesh (ranked 5th) together account for another 400 million people.

The role of the Himalayas in this distribution is understated: the mountain range is a source of ten major rivers, flowing to India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China, providing fresh water to 1.3 billion people in its watershed.

RankCountryPopulationArea1???????? India1,437,982,6613,287,260 km²2???????? China1,425,317,7209,562,910 km²3???????? Indonesia279,119,6261,916,907 km²4???????? Pakistan243,772,596796,100 km²5???????? Bangladesh174,173,808147,570 km²6???????? Russia144,101,44917,098,250 km²7???????? Japan122,833,540377,974 km²8???????? Philippines119,106,224300,000 km²9???????? Vietnam99,308,524331,340 km²10???????? Iran89,626,6611,745,150 km²11???????? Turkey86,127,389785,350 km²12???????? Thailand71,863,281513,120 km²13???????? Myanmar54,849,472676,590 km²14???????? South Korea51,756,284100,430 km²15???????? Iraq46,225,266435,050 km²16???????? Afghanistan43,026,322652,860 km²17???????? Saudi Arabia37,473,9292,149,690 km²18???????? Uzbekistan35,522,965448,924 km²19???????? Yemen34,982,136555,000 km²20???????? Malaysia34,562,556330,411 km²21???????? Nepal31,136,781147,180 km²22???????? North Korea26,220,850120,540 km²23???????? Syria24,010,759185,180 km²24???????? Taiwan23,942,52236,197 km²25???????? Sri Lanka21,933,15565,610 km²26???????? Kazakhstan19,764,1582,724,900 km²27???????? Cambodia17,071,236181,040 km²28???????? Jordan11,368,89889,318 km²29???????? Azerbaijan10,448,63686,600 km²30???????? Tajikistan10,277,238141,379 km²31???????? UAE9,569,30098,648 km²32???????? Israel9,272,22822,070 km²33???????? Laos7,736,681236,800 km²34???????? Kyrgyzstan6,807,948199,950 km²35???????? Turkmenistan6,573,631488,100 km²36???????? Singapore6,119,203728 km²37???????? Palestine5,494,9636,025 km²38???????? Lebanon5,257,50110,450 km²39???????? Oman4,692,824309,500 km²40???????? Kuwait4,337,70317,820 km²41???????? Georgia3,720,47769,700 km²42???????? Mongolia3,480,0401,564,116 km²43???????? Armenia2,777,97929,743 km²44???????? Qatar2,730,86411,490 km²45???????? Bahrain1,494,745790 km²46???????? Timor-Leste1,374,02514,870 km²47???????? Cyprus1,260,1389,250 km²48???????? Bhutan790,91838,390 km²49???????? Maldives518,765300 km²50???????? Brunei454,8695,770 km²

Note: Russia and Georgia are typically regarded as European countries for cultural reasons, despite their geographic locations. They have been included in the dataset for context only.

Other countries that are covered by red: Indonesia (ranked 4th in population), Japan (ranked 7th), and the Philippines (8th), are all some of Asia’s most populous countries.

They also have some of the world’s densest cities:

Tokyo and Beijing—despite being some of the world’s largest cities by population—record lower densities in comparison, helped by their much larger administrative areas.

But when sorted by average population density across the entire country, the ranks look a little bit different.

The city state of Singapore is the densest country in Asia, with more than 8,000 people/km². Far behind it, the similarly sized in area Bahrain has one-sixth the population and ranks second (1,892/km²) in Asia’s densest countries.

RankCountryPopulation Density1???????? Singapore8,405 people/km²2???????? Bahrain1,892 people/km²3???????? Maldives1,729 people/km²4???????? Bangladesh1,180 people/km²5???????? Palestine912 people/km²6???????? Taiwan661 people/km²7???????? South Korea515 people/km²8???????? Lebanon503 people/km²9???????? India437 people/km²10???????? Israel420 people/km²11???????? Philippines397 people/km²12???????? Sri Lanka334 people/km²13???????? Japan325 people/km²14???????? Pakistan306 people/km²15???????? Vietnam300 people/km²16???????? Kuwait243 people/km²17???????? Qatar238 people/km²18???????? North Korea218 people/km²19???????? Nepal212 people/km²20???????? China149 people/km²21???????? Indonesia146 people/km²22???????? Thailand140 people/km²23???????? Cyprus136 people/km²24???????? Syria130 people/km²25???????? Jordan127 people/km²26???????? Azerbaijan120 people/km²27???????? Turkey110 people/km²28???????? Iraq106 people/km²29???????? Malaysia105 people/km²30???????? UAE97 people/km²31???????? Armenia94 people/km²32???????? Cambodia94 people/km²33???????? Timor-Leste92 people/km²34???????? Myanmar81 people/km²35???????? Brunei79 people/km²36???????? Uzbekistan79 people/km²37???????? Tajikistan73 people/km²38???????? Afghanistan66 people/km²39???????? Yemen63 people/km²40???????? Georgia54 people/km²41???????? Iran51 people/km²42???????? Kyrgyzstan34 people/km²43???????? Laos33 people/km²44???????? Bhutan21 people/km²45???????? Saudi Arabia17 people/km²46???????? Oman15 people/km²47???????? Turkmenistan13 people/km²48???????? Russia8 people/km²49???????? Kazakhstan7 people/km²50???????? Mongolia2 people/km²

Note: Russia and Georgia are typically regarded as European countries for cultural reasons, despite their geographic locations. They have been included in the dataset for context only.

Bangladesh, with 1,180 people/km², has the rare distinction of being a top five Asian country by both population and average population density.

Meanwhile, India is 9th in population density (437 people/km²), its large landmass bringing down the average considerably.

Similarly, China nearly breaks into the top 20 with a population density of 149 people/km². Despite its vast population, the country’s immense size presents a challenge, particularly in its western regions, which are largely inhospitable to substantial human settlement due to the presence of mountains, the Tibetan plateau, and two deserts.

At the bottom of the rankings, Mongolia (2 people/km²) and Kazakhstan (7 people/km²) are some of the least dense countries in the world.