Globe of Splendour: Dreams of escape from a crowded world

Ever since I visited Iceland, I had a yearning for landscapes empty of human habitation. I no longer enjoy big cities like I used to. I live in south-east England, the mostly densely populated part of the UK, which is number 25 in the list of countries by population density. The UK is just behind Vietnam is density terms. As i discovered when I moved from London to Brighton, I felt my stress levels reduce even as the high buildings and police sirens were replaced by the sense of light and space afforded by the sea and the generally smaller scale of architecture and the city. In the life of human beings our typical group size was not larger than 150 until about 11,000 years ago. Large cities with more than 100,000 populations are probably not older than 5000 years. Rome is believed to be the first city to grow to 1 million - perhaps the first megapolis. Today, there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.

When I drove through the Icelandic wilderness, I was moved by the sensation of an unspoiled human-free environment that for our ancestors would have been their birthright. I get the same feeling in the Scottish highlands where human impact is minimal. The words that sums up my feeling is 'peace' and 'freedom'.

It was only in 2005 that the majority of the human population became urban dwelling, as rapid urbanisation across the globe finally made urban as against rural existence the norm for the human species.

In the British isles, the happiest people according to a recent survey live on the Scottish islands. These are sparsely populated with beautiful vistas of the sea and unspoiled nature. This to me is central to human happiness - living by the sea and close to the countryside is good for our mental well-being, even though some people are happiest in big cities. Some thrive on stress, but as a recent article explained:

Living in an urban environment is long known to be a risk factor for psychiatric diseases such as major depression or schizophrenia. This is true even though infrastructure, socioeconomic conditions, nutrition and health care services are clearly better in cities than in rural areas. Higher stress exposure and higher stress vulnerability seem to play a crucial role. Social stress may be the most important factor for the increased risk of mental disorders in urban areas. It may be experienced as social evaluative threat, or as chronic social stress, both of which are likely to occur as a direct consequence of high population densities in cities. As for the impact on mental health, social stress seems to outweigh other urban stressors such as pollution or noise.
Living in crowded areas is associated with increased social stress, since the environment becomes less controllable for the individual. Social disparities also become much more prominent in cities and can impose stress on the individual. Further, disturbance of chronobiological rhythmsis is more frequent in cities than in rural areas and has a negative influence on mental health and beyond. A recent meta-analysis showed that urban dwellers have a 20 per cent higher risk of developing anxiety disorders, and a 40 per cent higher risk of developing mood disorders. For schizophrenia, double the risk has been shown, with a 'dose-response' relationship for urban exposure and disease risk. Longitudinal studies on patients with schizophrenia indicate that it is urban living and upbringing per se, rather than other epidemiological variables, that increase the risk for mental disorders.

So I have put together this list of sparsely populated states and territories. Of course the reality is that many countries are combinations of inhospitable desert or tundra with a few densely populated urban centres. Some are poor and many, if not most, resource rich. I have not included some of the smaller islands and city states such as Lichtenstein or Monaco. These tend to have dense populations, mostly of rich tax exiles.

Countries with world's lowest population densities

1 Mongolia

2 Western Sahara

3 French Guiana

4. Namibia

5. Iceland

6 Suriname

7. Mauritania

8. Australia

9. Botswana

10. Guyana

11. Libya

12. Canada

13. Gabon

14. Kazakhstan

15. Central African Republic

16. Russia

17. Oman

18. Chad

19. Bolivia

20. Turkmenistan

21. Mali

22. Republic of the Congo

23. South Sudan

24. Saudi Arabia