The Faroe Islands have a rather evenly distributed spatial settlement pattern, while in Åland the population is more concentrated. Denmark is different, with a more distributed spatial settlement pattern, rather like that of Germany and other parts of continental Europe. There are also relatively significant settlements along Norway’s south-west coast and in urban settlements scattered around the Baltic and Bothnian Seas. In Iceland, the population is to a large degree concentrated in the capital region of Reykjavík. Another settlement corridor runs from the Greater Gothenburg region to the northeast, through Stockholm, to the Finnish triangle of Helsinki, Tampere and Turku. There is a major settlement corridor from the area around the fjord of Oslo which contin¬ues into Sweden along the west coast towards the greater Copenhagen area. The Nordic population is to a large degree con¬centrated towards the coastal areas. Central Spain and Southern Portugal display a more sparsely populated set¬tlement structure similar to that of the Northern parts of Europe. There is a major concentration of population in an urban network corridor running from Northern England across the Benelux-countries through Germany towards Northern Italy. From Denmark, Poland and the Ukraine south¬wards, more populated areas can be found along with a dispersed settlement pattern. North-eastern Europe is sparsely populated with people concentrated to large cities such as Mos-cow, St Petersburg, the Baltic capitals and around the coastal areas of the Nordic Region. Darker colours show high number of inhabitants per cell and lighter colours show low number of inhabitants per cell. The shading represents the population in number of inhabitants per grid cell. With similar data being collected every day by MP network providers across the world, the prospect of being able to map contemporary and changing human population distributions over relatively short intervals exists, paving the way for new applications and a near real-time understanding of patterns and processes in human geography.This map shows the population density in the European continent and its surrounding territories in 2015. We also demonstrate how maps of human population changes can be produced over multiple timescales while preserving the anonymity of MP users. Using datasets of more than 1 billion MP call records from Portugal and France, we show how spatially and temporarily explicit estimations of population densities can be produced at national scales, and how these estimates compare with outputs produced using alternative human population mapping methods. Mobile phones (MPs) now have an extremely high penetration rate across the globe, and analyzing the spatiotemporal distribution of MP calls geolocated to the tower level may overcome many limitations of census-based approaches, provided that the use of MP data is properly assessed and calibrated. Consequently, spatially detailed changes across scales of days, weeks, or months, or even year to year, are difficult to assess and limit the application of human population maps in situations in which timely information is required, such as disasters, conflicts, or epidemics. However, the mapping of populations remains constrained by the logistics of censuses and surveys. During the past few decades, technologies such as remote sensing, geographical information systems, and global positioning systems have transformed the way the distribution of human population is studied and modeled in space and time.

Sweden on map populaton dispersio