Anthropogenic Biomes of the World
Urban
Urban regions are home to the densest human populations on the
planet. All of the major cities in the world fall into this anthrome class. Characterized by manmade structure and built land cover,
the urban anthrome lacks any significant agriculture and generally
has a small amount of both tree cover and cultivated land intermixed within
the artificial environment. World wide, 40% of the worlds
population live in dense settlements and urban anthromes.
However, these
places only cover 7% of the earths total ice-free land area.
Both urban and dense settlements are less influenced by variables
that typically describe biomes than other classes. Three of the top
five ecoregions that comprise the urban anthrome fall within the
conventional biome of temperate broadleaf forests, which reflects
the historic industrialization of Europe and North America and the
population booms related to it. However, cities
spring up for different reasons around the world, whether it is
access to water ways, roads, or resources; there is rarely one reason
for the existence of an urban anthrome in a particular region. This
is reflected in the variation in climatic variables found in each
urban anthrome.
|
Population
|
Global
Total |
Median |
Min |
Max |
|
billion persons (%) |
persons/km |
|
Total |
1.87 (29%)
|
205 |
336 |
49,930 |
|
Non-Urban |
0.2 (6%)
|
484 |
0 |
2471 |
|
|
Land Use & Land Cover
|
Global
Total
|
Median |
Min |
Max |
| million km2 (%) |
(cover %) |
|
Total Land Area |
0.6 (0.5%) |
N/A |
|
Urban |
0.3 (41.5%) |
30.2% |
17.6% |
100% |
|
Cultivated |
0.15 (1.0%) |
7.7% |
0.0% |
100% |
|
Irrigated |
0.1 (3.6%) |
0.8% |
0.0% |
100% |
|
Rice Paddy |
0.07 (4.0%) |
0.0% |
0.0% |
100% |
|
Pasture |
0.04 (0.1%) |
0.5% |
0.0% |
100% |
|
Tree Cover |
0.07 (0.2%) |
6.9% |
0.0% |
57.3% |
|
Bare Earth |
0.08 (0.2%) |
6.0% |
0.0% |
100% |
*Median,
Minimum and Maximum estimates were
calculated after removing the top and bottom
2% of cells in each anthrome based on
the Euclidean distance across the means of variables used for anthrome classification. |