People As Particles

Manila is the densest city on Earth, fitting 1.8 million people into a 43 square-kilometer crucible. The 16 other cities that constitute Metro Manila, the Philippine capital, are extraordinarily crowded as well, resulting in an overall density of 22,000/km². This is twice that of New York and almost three times that of Singapore.

To make these numbers more evocative, I devised what I call a particles chart. Compare the density of a Metro Manila city to other global cities below through the visual of colliding particles.

I have set the balls to generate at various sizes, reflecting the fact that some people take up more space than others. Think private vehicles versus public transport, detached homes versus high-rise condominiums. The balls are also colored in proportion to ethnic makeup, defined as where your ancestors were living in the year 1500. Migrant ancestor balls are colored by originating continent, ordered from largest to smallest shares.