The population of the UK increased by roughly 50 percent over the past 100 years – to 67 million today.
Crammed onto a rather small island, this makes it the 34th most densely populated country in the world, with 720 people per square mile.
Despite this, those touring the British Isles are likely to note seemingly undisturbed natural expanses in Snowdonia, the Yorkshire Dales or the Scottish Highlands.
This underlies the fact that some 84 percent of Brits reside in urban areas – ranging from garden-lined suburbs to high-rise city centres – leaving swathes of the countryside green.
But just how tightly packed is your neighbourhood? Check Express.co.uk’s map below.
Data from Census 2021 reveals that some corners of England and Wales are as heavily populated as a football pitch with 15 teams facing off at the same time.
In the affluent Westminster community of Maida Hill – named after a former pub honouring the British victory at the Battle of Maida in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars – the equivalent of 61,831 people live on each square mile of land – more than anywhere else in the country.
To put that in perspective, that’s about as much as Calcutta, India, the second-most densely populated city on the planet.
Or to look at it another way, that’s the same as 170 people living cheek-by-jowl on a patch of land the same size as a football pitch.
Residents of nearby Church Street likely find it just as cramped, with 61,621 people per square mile, followed by Aldgate in Tower Hamlets with 60,624.
As could be expected, the top 37 most dense neighbourhoods are in London, with the Hanover quarter of Brighton the first entry outside of the capital with 49,547 people per square mile.
At the other end of the spectrum, only 14 people live on each mile of land in rural Bellingham, Otterburn & Redesdale, in the North East, within the Northumberland National Park.
That is the equivalent of one person living alone on a patch of land the same size as 26 football pitches.
