CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 290Land Use and Ecosystem ServicesClimate Change, Adaptation, MigrationImpact of Light on Environment and Health

Hypsographic demography: The distribution of human population by altitude

Open access
Cohen, Joel E., Small, Christopher·1998·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.95.24.14009PMC PMC24316
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The global distribution of the human population by elevation is quantified here. As of 1994, an estimated 1.88 × 10 9 people, or 33.5% of the world’s population, lived within 100 vertical meters of sea level, but only 15.6% of all inhabited land lies below 100 m elevation. The median person lived at an elevation of 194 m above sea level. Numbers of people decreased faster than exponentially with increasing elevation. The integrated population density (IPD, the number of people divided by the land area) within 100 vertical meters of sea level was significantly larger than that of any other range of elevations and represented far more people. A significant percentage of the low-elevation population lived at moderate population densities rather than at the highest densities of central large cities. Assessments of coastal hazards that focus only on large cities may substantially underestimate the number of people who could be affected.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.95.24.14009

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Research on avian flight has typically been conducted at or near sea-level conditions for anthropogenic reasons deriving from contemporary altitudinal distribution of modern humans.

    “Research on avian flight has, for anthropogenic reasons deriving from contemporary altitudinal distribution of modern humans (Cohen and Small, 1998), typically been conducted at or near sea-level conditions.”

    From The physiology and biomechanics of avian flight at high altitude (2006) · cites this paper as Cohen and Small, 1998

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 35 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 19

  1. [3]Kopec R J. J Geography. 1971;70:541–550. [Google Scholar]
  2. [4]United Nations Population Division. World Urbanization Prospects: The 1996 Revision. New York: United Nations; 1997. [Google Scholar]
  3. [7]Hekstra G P. Global Warming and Rising Sea Levels: The Policy Implications. Delft, the Netherlands: Delft Hydraulics Laboratory; 1990. [Google Scholar]
  4. [10]Warrick R A. Climate and Sea Level Change: A Synthesis. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press; 1993. [Google Scholar]
  5. [11]Clarke J I, Rhind D W. Population Data and Global Environmental Change. Paris: ISSC/UNESCO Series No. 5; 1992. [Google Scholar]
  6. [17]Friedberg W, Faulkner D N, Snyder L, Darden E B, Jr, O’Brien K. Aviation Space Environ Med. 1989;60:1104–1108. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. [24]Meyer W B. Urban Geography. 1994;15:505–513. [Google Scholar]
  8. [26]United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision. New York: United Nations; 1996. [Google Scholar]
  9. [27]McDevitt T M. World Population Profile. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996. , U.S. Bureau of the Census Report WP/96. [Google Scholar]
  10. [29]Danko D M. GeoInfo Sys. 1992;2:29–36. [Google Scholar]
  11. [30]Defense Mapping Agency. Product Specifications for Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) 2nd Ed. St. Louis: Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center; 1986. [Google Scholar]
  12. [31]King G, Bailey G, Sturdy D. J Geophys Res. 1994;99(B10):20063–20078. [Google Scholar]
  13. [32]Cohen J E, Small C, Mellinger A, Gallup J, Sachs J D. Science. 1997;278:1211–1212. [Google Scholar]
  14. [33]Chapin F S, III, Walker B H, Hobbs R J, Hooper D U, Lawton J H, Sala O E, Tilman D. Science. 1997;277:500–504. [Google Scholar]
  15. [35]Dobson A P, Bradshaw A D, Baker A J M. Science. 1997;277:515–522. [Google Scholar]
  16. [36]Noble I R, Dirzo R. Science. 1997;277:522–525. [Google Scholar]
  17. [37]Sachs J. The Economist. 1997;343:19–22. [Google Scholar]
  18. [40]Kristof, N. D. (March 2, 1997) New York Times, pp. A1, A16. [PubMed]
  19. [41]Dunning J B, Stewart D J, Danielson B J, Noon B R, Root T L, Lamberson R H, Stevens E E. Ecol Appl. 1995;5:3–11. [Google Scholar]

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Cohen, J. E., & Small, C.
Affiliations
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (US)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
1998-11-24
Volume
95
Issue
24
Pages
14009-14014
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.95.24.14009
PMC
PMC24316
OpenAlex
W1977481540
Cited by
290
References
35
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 3
FWCI
1.37
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Impact of Light on Environment and Health
Keywords
human population distribution, altitude, hypsography, population density, coastal hazards, sea level rise, urban population
MeSH terms
Altitude, Demography, Geography, Humans, Population Density

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review