After the recent release of England and Wales Census data for 2021 I decided to take a quick look at which areas have the highest population density.

Stats, Maps n Pix: Where is the most densely populated square kilometre in the UK?

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2024-07-11 15:00:07

After the recent release of England and Wales Census data for 2021 I decided to take a quick look at which areas have the highest population density. I've done this kind of thing before, for the whole of Europe and also in relation to thinking about measures of population density more generally - in short, my view is that using the arithmetic mean approach to density makes very little sense at the country level because it doesn't reflect how we actually experience density (unless we live somewhere like Monaco). That's why I came up with the very simple idea of using 'lived density' instead. But this piece is about my attempt to find the area of the UK with the highest population density in a single square km. And note that I say 'in the UK' in the title because the highest density area of the UK is within London - the highest densities in (e.g.) Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast are about half that of London's densest areas. Here's where I think the most densely populated square kilometre in the UK is, based on 2021 Census data.

Here's a map of the southeast of England (mostly) showing 1km density - brighter colours = higher density. There are a few very high density areas outside London, but not necessarily exactly where you might expect.

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