POPULATION DENSITY

Taranaki Daily News, 25 August 1931, Page 7

POPULATION DENSITY

| INTERESTING COMPARISONS. | DOMINION’S LOW AVERAGE. I The position of New Zealand in relation to the distribution of the world’s peoples was mentioned in a report urging the development of the Dominion’s natural resources presented by the secretary of the New Zealand Land Settlement League, Mr. N. G. Gribble, at a meeting of that body. New Zealand, with an area of about 100,000 square miles, has a population of 1,500,000, the report stated, or an average of about 15 persons to a square mile. Japan, on the other hand, with an area of about 148,000 square miles of comparatively poor country, has a population of more than 60,000,000; an average of 450 persons to a square mile. Japan’s population was reported to be increasing at a rate of about 1,000,000 a year. The population density of most European countries, excluding Russia, is about 500 to the square mile, and, including Russia, 122, it was • stated.

The report was approved, it being considered that definite efforts should be made to attract settlers to turn the ample fertile land in New Zealand to account.