(here's the 2000 Version)
In response to a query that appeared on the Mountain Forum list, asking what percent of the earth's surface and human population exist above 4000 feet (1220 meters) elevation, I used digital elevation data from GTOPO30 (sub- averaged to 5 x 5 minute cell size) and population data from GPW2 to come up with the following:
| Global surface area: | 510 million square kilometers |
| Land surface area: | 150 million square kilometers |
| Elev > 4000 ft surface area: | 30 million square kilometers |
| Land area, percent of globe: | 30% |
| Elev > 4000 ft, percent of globe: | 6% |
| Elev > 4000 ft, percent of land: | 20% |
| Global 1995 population: | 5700 million |
| Population > 4000 ft: | 570 million |
| Population > 4000 ft, pct global: | 10% |
There has been a lot of interesting work done with these datasets; see references at the CIESIN site, especially the paper by Small & Cohen which shows distributions of population by various physiographic parameters, including elevation.
Here's an image showing the earth's topography in green and population (for cells > 4000 feet only) in red:
Last updated 09-Jul-2008