Estimating the Population Density on Coruscant (from The Mandalorian)
Here’s the line from The Mandalorian Chapter 19: The Convert. Elia Kane is talking to Dr. Pershing about Coruscant. Don’t worry, there aren’t any plot spoilers here.
Elia: A trillion permanent residents.
Pershing: Amazing.
Right away I think: Wow. 1 TRILLION people. That’s a lot. It’s WAY more than the 8 billion people on Earth. Is that TOO many? How about some estimations. OK, let’s do that.
Population Density
Let’s assume that Coruscant is the same size and mass as the Earth. Why would we assume that? Well, we don’t really have much of an option. There’s nothing in the show that gives the physical characteristics of the planet. Oh, and note: I’m just using material from this episode of The Mandalorian. There might be some book that goes over these details — but I don’t want to see that.
The Earth has a radius of 6.38 x 10⁶ meters. If we assume its a sphere (mostly true) then it’s total surface are would be:
This gives a total area of 5.12 x 10¹⁴ m². Now I can calculate the population density (humanoids per square meter). This gives a value of 1.96 x 10^-3 people per m². Is that low? It seems low.
