80% of Americans Live East of This Line (And Other Interesting Population Patterns)

A line of cities stretching from San Antonio to Winnipeg marks a cutoff of population, with 80% of Americans living on one side, and a mere 20% on the other. Today on That Is Interesting, we explore population patterns such as this across the globe.

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[julieerin]

And the majority of Canadian cities are within 2 hours of the US border.

[AbrahamLincoln]

Well the east coast was colonized first so I can see why.

[AfricanHro]

I feel like its hard to comprehend how empty the western US is until you've driven through it.

[matthewviramontes]

71 million people in western U.S., 40 million of those live in California, so over half of the west coast is just people in California.

[andrewplayz]

California *alone* : 39 million people
Canada : 37 million people

[Nextraker]

I live in that big area with only 17 million people, my city is Phoenix and I’m glad we don’t get tornados, hurricanes, blizzards of earthquakes here.

[retf]

Hah, only 3% of Egypt's lands contain around 97%-98% of the overall are of our country. It is just One big string if you look on it from a night map

[TampaTec]

1 year later YouTube recommends this to me. Not sure why but it is for sure interesting. liked

[polyboy]

85% of Australia's population live on the coast, it's crazy how it's such a large land mass with little sight of humans in central

[FastCarsNoRules]

I always thought the west side from Colorado to California is a lot more interesting because of the variety of landscapes such as mountains, deserts, canyons, and forests despite having less cities there.

[medio-litro]

Yes yes tell me more about how people usually don't like living in barren wastelands.

[John_Fugazzi]

I've driven across the U.S. a number of times and the first thing I noticed was that the line shown by the night map corresponds exactly to where the scenery turns from green to brown and vice versa. The arid west just couldn't support that many people and only really grew from the 1950's on due to technology. Nice presentation!

[DrBeauHightower]

Albuquerque checking in from the barren West

[polyxsz]

So that’s why Fort Worth PD has the “Where the West begins” slogan. Can’t relate, I live in a Dallas suburb.

[kevinpace]

Water=life basically. More people live on coasts rather center of landmass.

[jnyerere]

Me in DC: Damn I have to go to Philly! That's a freaking 2.5 hour drive!

West Coast Commuter: 🙄🙄 East Coast problems...

[kingsledge]

Great videos I really enjoy them, but I feel I should critique the reason behind the East vs West line separating the USA population.

As someone who lives in Lincoln and am very familiar with the area between the line and the Rockies, your basis of foothills or rougher terrain being the cause is wrong. While the elevation does increase, it is slow at best. The great plains in this area are very fertile and easy to navigate, making it a great place to settle and build cities.

I would argue the line is formed because of four main factors. First would be the discovery of precious minerals in the west. The prospect of becoming wealthy quick drew people to skip the great plains. This was counter to the slow westward expansion the US had that allowed larger cities to pop up as the new gateways to the west i.e. St Louis, Kansas City, and Omaha. This can also be seen in where the Oregon Trail, Mormon Trail, etc started.

Of course that wasn't possible without the second reason: transportation. The transcontinental railroad starting in Omaha provided a fast and much safer route west. More railroads and later cars and planes exponentially decreased the need for larger towns and cities close together. There are many studies on the distance between cities and their size based on the distance someone can travel in one day to do their business and return home safely. This boom started around the time the cities along that line we're starting to boom.

Third factor is climate and weather. Although modern technology like air conditioning and newer irrigation techniques have made it less of a factor, the Great Plains are still subject to more arid conditions and a climate of extremes. The area is subject to great fluxuations is temperatures due to a weather phenomenon called continental effect. The further an area is from a major body of water, the greater the extremes because water doesn't heat or cool as quick as air. This keeps coastal areas, especially those with steady winds cumming in from the ocean, more steady in temperature ranges. The lack of large bodies of water create over 100° f differences every year in those areas making less attractive to live. This phenomenon is also responsible for low populations in Western China and Siberia Russia.

The fourth and probably least responsible reason for the line is environmentalism. Starting under Theodore Roosevelt, the protection of natural environment became a huge movement that continues today. Making less land available to settle. Areas that would normally be huge draws to live in the modern day because of their beauty are off limits to live in. This effect can be seen easily in maps of national parks with nearly 90% of protected land being west of the line.

Thanks for reading, it's an area I've studied for years and am passionate about.

[PoolGyall]

The fact that North Korea is completely dark then South Korea is just lit up really says something about the two countries

[thecloudyfox]

how does this channel not have more views?

[bigussmokesus]

It seems like more than half of the 17 million live in Denver, Texas, or Phoenix