Standing room only

Thus, you could fit them all on the Isle of Lewis, which is 1,770 square kilometres, and with even more breathing room, into Luxembourg, which has a luxurious 2,586 square kilometres. Whether the inhabitants of Lewis or Luxembourg (let alone everyone else) would be happy with these arrangements is another matter, of course.

When I was a child, I remember reading that everyone in the world could fit onto the Isle of Wight. But at a mere 390 square kilometres, that seems out of the question now. And I think I must have seen it in a book my grandparents had bought, as 390 square kilometres would accommodate a mere 1.9 billion people, so it cannot have been true after about 1925. Which brings us onto the topic of exponential growth, but I will write about that another time.

By the way, the total land area of the earth is about 149 million square kilometres. "Million square kilometres" is a real mouthful, so I like to abbreviate it to Misk. Misks are a useful unit when thinking about planetary-scale problems, like how to make sure 7.9 billion people have enough to eat even when they're not all standing on the Isle of Lewis.