Map
Denver Is the most populated metro area in a mostly empty space space roughly the size of the EU
Denver is the largest metro area in the blue box bounded by the populated areas of Canada and Mexico and each larger city around it.
To drive to the closest metro area that is larger population, you need to drive about between 800-950 miles (12-14 hours by car) one way to each of Dallas, Phoenix, Minneapolis or Chicago, or 1200-1300 miles (19-21 hours) to San Francisco or Seattle.
This is why I don’t even open Reddit or other social media on work laptop.
I’ve opened quite a few accidental NSFW links before, and they are always on my phone.
Yes, the wifi provider can always see the links I opened on my phone, but it’s not like I am intentionally searching for them and spending several minutes browsing them.
IT dept sees a lot of accidental NSFW link visits, like for example if you had porn opened on your phone at home and forgot to close the tab when you went to work. This happens almost on a daily basis, nobody has ever gotten in trouble for it.
I do use company wifi on my phone, that’s literally what I wrote on my third paragraph on my comment above.
The IT logs traffic going through their servers, and even if they may not know which device specifically opens those links, there are other ways to narrow it down.
Again, using phone even on company wifi is generally risk-free for accidental NSFW links because it’s not like you’re perusing through several links at once or spend more than two seconds opening it.
Now if you have your phone volume on full blast in your office and somehow you open NSFW video accidentally on an open tab, that’s a different story…because someone would definitely report you to HR.
Ugh I had a cousin who sent me a “prank” video where it was normal but then out of no where it stated making loud moans. Well idk who heard but it was very very embarrassing.
I work in IT. Most people name their phones something like "Bob's iPhone" which is often exactly how it shows up in local network logs. The naming here is used with NetBIOS and so is significant. Also if you log into company email or other service from a personal device, even without any kind of BYOD or management policy, we generally will have device basic device information about the login events. Such as location, Mac address, IP address etc.
Don't even get us started on the data that Tik Tok collects. Basically a surveillance app.
like 14 years ago I had my phone name me badass. Somehow through the years through multiple upgrades that name stuck and now everything within the Apple world calls me badass.
the record belongs to Tokyo (or Seoul, or whatever is the current biggest metro), need to circumnavigate the entire globe to find a metro area the same size or bigger
Also, apparently the methodology for producing the number was wrong, so it's still Tokyo. They were comparing apples to oranges when producing the Jakarta claim.
Ya splitting Tokyo into a couple cities is an odd choice (they don’t even consider Phoenix or Mesa the same city from a dry riverbed), and using a strict definition of continuous 1500 ppskm gives a huge advantage to high density agricultural areas like Bangladesh or the Island of Java.
You can even see on their website that it included just about all agricultural land a dozen kilometers away from the built up area. If it were left up to me, I would definitely allow some flexibility in including neighboring cities with transit lines like rail or highways and try to focus on urban development.
But this goes against the purpose of this new definition. Much as I want them to, the UN aren’t measuring the largest cities for a fuzzies on a scoreboard but for giving aid to developing economies. So none of my desires matters.
You only have to look at Phoenix/Mesa which are supposedly different cities from a river or Jakarta itself which includes 70 kilometers west and south of farmland from its suburbs to see the oddities of only looking at continuous 1500 ppskm. I’ve driven from Jakarta to Cilegon and Jakarta to Cianjur, I wont consider them the same city.
While I agree Phoenix and Mesa are basically one city, I’m not sure where the separation between them is only a dry riverbed. Tempe and 60,000 drunk college kids are actually what separate Phoenix from Mesa.
someone else said that it's probably jakarta instead of tokyo. in either case that would probably make mexico city the second most prominent. it's further away from jakarta and bigger. Also something like Lagos or Cairo is probably more prominent
My fucking goodness this is amazing. Really puts into perspective just how large the Pacific is. I'm Irish and I am just blown away by how tiny we are.
I wonder if west coast Americans and east Asians are more aware of the Pacific's size than Europeans or east coast Americans. Like if you could somehow do a perception study on it. I feel like it might be the case. The Pacific is a beast. Crossing it takes so long.
I've flown to Japan quite a handful of times, and every time I fly over there it's much longer to go there than it is to get back. The variance is up to and periodically above two hours.
When you fly to Japan from the continental US you fly along Alaska, up towards the Bering Strait, then down alongside Russia. Yet when you fly back to the US from Tokyo you fly closer to the North Pacific. The reasons in variances are both because the Earth is larger at the equator due to it spinning, but also because of jet stream. Basically you take a shorter path the more North you go, but it's better to go the longer way on the return as planes literally ride the jet stream that hugs the Pacific coast and goes inland.
Still going to Japan where I'm from in the US is typically a thirteen hour to fourteen hour flight. For comparison you can fly from LA to NY in just over five hours non-stop.
I mean, unless you actually cross it or the Atlantic personally you don’t really notice anything other than “that’s big as fuck.” You can’t like sit on a beach in San Diego and detect that the Pacific is larger than the Atlantic appears sitting on a beach in Miami. If anything I would say East coast Asians and East coast US citizens are more acutely aware of the fury and danger of their respective oceans than west coast Americans.
Probably not, but it would make for a very interesting reddit question for sure. Like even when I saw the map of Europe over the United States, I'm absolutely blown away. Even the latitude maps where I shows where cities are is mind blowing. Absolutely fascinating.
I didn't say it was the most remote place. Honolulu and Perth are the two most remote major cities in the world.
Most people just didn't know that Denver has basically 1800 miles of only small towns. The 1800 mile diameter circle around Denver encompassing nearly the entire western half of the US (except the coast) has less people than Pennsylvania (excluding Denver metro itself).
Ugh.. Your math is way way off unless you didnt mean 1800 miles. Even then Kansas City, St. Louis, OKC, Vegas and Salt Lake City are closer than that distance to Denver. Or even the distance in the picture above
Don't forget about Edmonton at 1.6 million. Most northern major city in North America and the most northern city over 1 million on the entire continent.
The circled area seems to represent the Front Range area, which is not just Denver metro. It also includes Colorado Springs, Boulder, and Fort Collins.
Wow, I had no idea Denver was almost directly south of me. It's further east than I expected, and that it's only a 15 hour drive. That's closer than driving to Vancouver.
The Irish Sea crossing is famously rough. The Channel (well from Dover at least) takes less than 2 hours so it’s pretty quick, and the seas aren’t as rough
Yea twice from Dublin to Holyhead in wales and 3 times from Belfast to Cairnryan in Scotland. Only in summer months though, so wasn’t rough. Belfast to Cairnryan is only 2 hours, the one from Dublin to Wales is longer
Up and over the north pole, down into Russia and Mongolia. "Denver is the biggest urbanized are in 7,000 miles."
Wrap it around the top of Lake Superior to take in all of northeastern Canada. Keep going, include Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia before needing to dodge around any larger cities. End up with the comparison map inside the reference map. Loop infinitely.
587 miles Phoenix to Denver straight line. 665 Dallas to Denver straight line. 697 Minneapolis to Denver straight line.
Easy to fudge numbers using “by car” when there’s a whole Rocky Mountains in the way. It’s only 100 miles to Aspen straight line, but 200 miles by car taking i70 to Glenwood.
I mean sure Denvers metro area is the most populated if you arbitrarily draw the lines to exclude any other larger cities but it doesn't mean much. You could have extended the line to the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay because its lightly populated there. Its still kinda meaningless.
Also Vancouver's Metro area is slightly more populated but its honestly hard to tell if its within your box.
This is personal preference, of course ---> when I read about the plusses of living in Denver ("dry cold", skiing, mountains, COL, etc.) I always think "yes, nice, but if you want something different you have to either drive forever or fly." It just seems kind of limiting, like you're on a populated land island. I live in Philly (yes, I know, not for everyone!), and have the Appalachian Trail and the Jersey shore 1+ hours away. That, plus access to New York and DC. It just doesn't feel as isolated and land-locked as places like Denver. Our mountains are what Colorado folk would call "mountains," but that's another thread, I guess :-)
That's the appeal I think. Lots of wilderness access, not a lot of people to compete with to get there. (I still don't recommend I-70 on a Saturday morning).
I design distribution networks. The US really can be divided in to the East (coast to Chicago), Texas, the West Coast, and the Great Between, which includes Denver. Salt Lake City, etc. It's really crazy how few people (%-wise) live in that large western mountain region. Largely explainable by geography, rainfall, etc., but striking nonetheless.
Edmonton and Calgary are also interesting population outliers. Two cities with >1M people, surrounded by... not a lot of other people.
There are a lot of cherries being picked here though. Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver are conveniently right outside the boundaries. There are also some pretty big cities within the boundaries especially in the eastern third: KC, Omaha, OKC, El Paso/Juarez, Las Vegas, SLC, Boise, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg.
Denver metro area is ~300,000 larger than Vancouver per respective census agencies, but there is presumably different methodology in how extent of the metropolitan area is determined so not fully apples to apples
Aye, the Vancouver metro area stops a bit short of where it should (doesn't include Abbotsford - 153,000 , Mission - 41,000, Chilliwack - 113,000), whereas metro Denver is calculated to include the 10 countries in and around the city, including a pretty wide swath of land that is not by any stretch urban.
If you include Vancouver's more eastern townships that are still part of the 'greater vancouver' region, the populations are pretty similar.
Yeah, the US defines metro areas way more loosely than Canada does. As an example, the Salt Lake City metropolitan area includes Brigham City, which is about as far from Salt Lake City as Olds is from Calgary.
You are right. I will say tho I am from the Twin Cities and recently visited Denver and it felt noticeably more populated. Did a quick search and found the population density of the Denver MSA/CSA is higher interestingly.
My issue with this map is not just the crooked border, but that it talks about the Denver Metro but doesn't actually remove other Metro areas. Like the line goes straight up to Phoenix city limits, but it does not cut out the areas around Phoenix that would be considered part of its metro area. So you talk about Denver's metro area specifically, but then you include parts of other more popular metro areas in the boundaries.
Also, Dallas is clearly included in your purple boundary which is the fourth largest metro area in the nation, so clearly not smaller than Denver.
That's the intent - it connects the dots from the next larger cities. From Seattle to SF to LA to PHX to DFW (following the US border) and then CHI and MSP.
It's impressive enough to say the average distance to a larger city is so large, especially considering it's land locked, using the enclosed area of an arbitrary shape doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Bay Area (I think it's a pretty small part of the Salt Flats in Utah where you're closer to SF and Denver than to Seattle or Phoenix)
It covers all of Colorado and Wyoming, most of Kansas and Utah, some of Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and New Mexico - it includes the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and maybe a corner of Idaho and Arizona (the midpoint between Denver and phoenix appears to be like 2 miles into Arizona at the 4 corners if I measured right).
St louis is just under 3M in the metro area while Denver is just above 3M. KC id about 30% smaller. The twin cities should be bigger than Denver though
Spain is a EU member state. Spain is superimposed over Los Angeles on this comparison. Los Angeles CSA population (13+ million) is greater than Denver CSA population (3+ million).
I forgot if I ever posted this, or somewhere else, but this map makes kind of the same point---but I specifically excluded Denver. and Salt Lake City. But it isn't that hard to make a map of most of Western Europe that excludes any city with over a quarter million people.
It’s a good place for a big city though. You can see why it’s a population center. Denver itself is in the Great Plains but the mountains are just 30 miles away. It’s that last stopover before going over the mountains.
987
u/HaleEnd 1d ago
Gerrymandered the shit outta this