Detailed map of the urbanization

2009/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Giza zientziak

In the 2009 World Development Report, the World Bank and the European Union have published a new map on urbanization. Since there is no unitary definition of urbanization, the map authors have created a new definition, the agglomeration index, from which they have drawn up the map.

Looking at the map, several conclusions can be drawn. Among other things, it shows that half of the population has come to live in the cities ahead of schedule. In fact, this was thought to happen in 2007-2008, but the map shows that it was in 2000. In addition, more than half of the population lives less than an hour from a city, but there is a big difference between developed and developing countries: in the first 85% of the population lives at that distance and in the others 35%.

It should be noted that 95% of the population is concentrated in 10% of the Earth, although only 10% of the Earth is isolated or more than 48 hours from a large city.

According to the authors, the map is very useful for analyzing many aspects and can help decision-making in both the economy and social policy and the environment.