| SvennoJ said:
The population of greater London (8.9 million) isn't that far off the entire population of Sweden. The population density of Greater London is 4,542 people per sq km, Greater Stockholm or Stockholm county (2.2 million) has a population density of 360 people per sq km. |
You are comparing apples to oranges within an apples to oranges comparison.
The area of Stockholm County (Stockholms län) is 4 times greater than Greater London (6500 sq km vs 1570 sq km). That should be an indication of the two not being comparable. There are huge swathes of forests, lakes and farmland that are a part of Stockholm County. Just throwing "Greater" infront of the city name doesn't have any standardized meaning in terms of city borders and where the cutoff is.
What you should be comparing it to is the Stockholm Urban Area, which has a population of 1.4 million (two thirds of the entire country) and an area of 381 sq km (about 6% of the entire county). Which gives a population density of 3600 per sq km, which, you know, actually makes sense because large urban areas don't have a population density of 360 people per sq km. I'd look into your Melbourne number because it triggers my bullshit alarm immediately as well, but I think this gets the message across.
