The world has a population of approximately 6.9 billion with an average global population density of 35 per square mile. Antarctica and Tristan da Cunha are the most isolated places in the world, while Koryak Okrug, Northern Siberia, Western Australian Desert, and northwestern Canada are the most isolated places on inhabited continents. Population density fails to convey the true seclusion of these areas.
The world has an area of approximately 197 million square miles (510 million square kilometers) and a population (as of 2011) of approximately 6.9 billion. This leads to an average global population density of about 35 per square mile (13 per square km), but in practice people are highly concentrated in cities and around arable land, making the average population density for many areas much lower. Some gigantic regions, such as the Sahara Desert, Siberia and Greenland, are home to only a few thousand people for every 100,000 square miles (258,999 square km). Some of the most isolated places in the world are very cold or very dry, but not necessarily.
For starters, the most isolated place in the world is probably Antarctica. The continent is 5.4 million square miles (14 million sq km) and is inhabited by approximately 4,000 seekers in the summer and 1,000 in the winter. There are just over 25 research stations in Antarctica, all but a few located within a hundred miles of the coast. Aside from the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole, the interior of Antarctica is essentially empty. This makes sense: Here at the ends of the Earth, rain barely falls, the sun doesn’t shine for weeks or months, and temperatures drop as low as -130°F (-90°C).
Another of the world’s most isolated places is Tristan da Cunha, the most remote archipelago on Earth, 1,750 miles (2,816 km) west of South Africa. Tristan da Cunha is located in the South Atlantic, about halfway between southern Brazil and South Africa. With a population of just over 250, Tristan da Cunha’s economy is based on its lobster factory and the sale of stamps and coins to overseas collectors. The nearest major city, Cape Town, is a three-hour flight away. Due to its geography, the South Atlantic has very few islands.
When it comes to the most isolated places on major inhabited continents, some of the top contenders are Koryak Okrug in far eastern Siberia, with a population density of just 0.2 people per square mile (0.1 people per square kilometer), some parts of Northern Siberia, the Western Australian Desert and northwestern Canada. In some of these areas, it would be possible to detonate an atomic bomb in plain sight, and no one would notice. In some of the more isolated areas, the density of population fails to convey the true seclusion of the area, as most of the population is clustered in towns and villages separated by hundreds of miles (100 miles = 161km).
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