Land per Person
Question 2 of 6: What resources does the planet offer? · The whole story
In short: Divide the Earth’s surface by the number of people and the numbers become easy to picture. In a world of 10 billion people, each of us would have about 10,500 m² of habitable land, roughly one hectare (about 12,800 m² today, with 8.2 billion people). Almost half of it is farmland, and about three quarters of that farmland is used for livestock, which provides only a small part of the world’s calories. Cities and roads take only about 1.5%. Our diet is the biggest lever we each have on how land is used.
The Question
Section titled “The Question”The Earth is so large that its figures, millions of square kilometres, mean little to us. This makes decisions about land, whether personal or collective, hard to think about. This article asks: if we share the planet’s land equally, how much does each person get, and what is it used for?
The Earth Per Person
Section titled “The Earth Per Person”The per-person figures below divide each area by 10 billion people, roughly where the world’s population is expected to peak this century. Today, with about 8.2 billion people, each share is about a fifth larger.
Earth Surface Overview
Section titled “Earth Surface Overview”| Category | Total Area (M km²) | Area per Person |
|---|---|---|
| Oceans | 361.9 (70.9%) | 36,190 m² |
| Emerged Land | 148.1 (29.1%) | 14,810 m² |
| Total | 510.0 | 51,000 m² |
Emerged Land Composition
Section titled “Emerged Land Composition”| Category | Total Area (M km²) | Area per Person |
|---|---|---|
| Habitable Land | 105.0 (70.9%) | 10,500 m² |
| Barren Land | 28.0 (18.9%) | 2,800 m² |
| Glaciers | 15.0 (10.1%) | 1,500 m² |
| Total | 148.0 | 14,800 m² |
Habitable Land Breakdown
Section titled “Habitable Land Breakdown”| Category | Total Area (M km²) | Area per Person |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 48.3 (46.0%) | 4,830 m² |
| Forest | 39.9 (38.0%) | 3,990 m² |
| Shrubland | 14.7 (14.0%) | 1,470 m² |
| Urban & Built-Up Land | 1.47 (1.4%) | 147 m² |
| Freshwater | 0.63 (0.6%) | 63 m² |
| Total | 105.0 | 10,500 m² |
Agricultural Land Use
Section titled “Agricultural Land Use”| Category | Total Area (M km²) | Area per Person |
|---|---|---|
| Livestock (grazing and feed crops) | 37.0 (76.9%) | 3,700 m² |
| Crops for Food | 8.0 (16.7%) | 800 m² |
| Non-Food Crops | 3.0 (6.4%) | 300 m² |
| Total | 48.0 | 4,800 m² |
What This Means
Section titled “What This Means”- About one hectare each. That is roughly a large city block, or one and a half football pitches, to provide all our food, wood, fibre and wild nature.
- Farming is the big footprint, not cities. Everything we have built, cities, roads, factories, covers only about 150 m² per person. Agriculture takes about thirty times more.
- Most farmland feeds animals. Grazing land and the crops grown for animal feed take about three quarters of farmland. Yet meat, milk and eggs provide less than a fifth of the world’s calories and under two fifths of its protein.
- Every choice moves the balance. More land for animals means less left for forests and wild nature. Less meat and dairy frees land that can return to nature.
Why This Perspective Matters
Section titled “Why This Perspective Matters”Seeing land per person:
- makes abstract world statistics personal: you can picture “your” hectare and ask what it is used for;
- shows how individual consumption, especially diet, turns into demand for land;
- raises the question of fairness: if everyone has about the same share, some ways of living use far more than their share, and others far less.
Examples
Section titled “Examples”- Diet and land: a large study of food production around the world found that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet, global farmland could shrink by about three quarters, an area the size of the United States, China, the European Union and Australia combined, while still feeding everyone.
- Forests coming back: where farmland is no longer needed, forests can return. Large parts of Europe have more forest today than a century ago, after farming moved to more productive land.
The Human Side
Section titled “The Human Side”Land is not only numbers. It is the landscapes we grow up in, the food on our table and the nature we escape to. Feeling connected to that land, and knowing how our choices affect it, can make sustainable choices feel less like a sacrifice and more like care. See human needs in the Personal Guide.
Open Questions
Section titled “Open Questions”- How much land should be left to wild nature, and who decides?
- How can farmers be supported if less land is needed for livestock?
- Should rich countries, which use land abroad through their imports, count that land as part of their footprint?
Where Next
Section titled “Where Next”- Next: Fair Globe Sharing, on sharing the world’s resources between people
- Related: Fair Space Sharing, a proposal for sharing land with nature, and Plant-Based Consumption, on how diet connects to land use
Sources
Section titled “Sources”- Our World in Data, Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Land Use” (based on FAO data)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT land use data
- Poore and Nemecek, “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers”, Science (2018)
- United Nations, World Population Prospects 2024