Gaza Strip: Urban density amidst devastating bombardmen

• The Gaza Strip faces extensive damage from Israel’s bombardment.
• Gaza’s population density results from urban development.
• Urban centers like Gaza City and Khan Younis have even higher population densities.

Large portions of the Gaza Strip have been leveled by Israel’s heavy bombardment during the conflict with Hamas. There have been hundreds of thousands of displaced people and thousands of deaths.

And that’s all taking place in a small, highly crowded coastal town.

Nestled between Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea is Gaza. The strip is roughly 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide and 25 miles (40 kilometers) long. The CIA Factbook states that 2.3 million people reside there in an area that is 139 square miles (360 square kilometers).

That is roughly the same land area as Detroit, which the US Census Bureau estimates has 620,000 residents. It is around 2.5 times larger than Paris and twice the size of Washington.

There are roughly 14,000 people living in Gaza per square mile, or 5,500 per square kilometer. That is comparable to London, a metropolis full of skyscrapers and parks alike. Gaza lacks open spaces because of urban development and poor planning, particularly in its cities.

In Gaza’s urban centers, such as Gaza City or Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of people live in close quarters, the city’s density is even more densely populated, with some areas having densities that are more akin to those of some heavily populated Asian cities.

Movement in and out of Gaza has been severely limited by an Israeli-Egyptian embargo that was implemented following the militant Hamas group’s takeover of power in 2007, which has contributed to the feeling of overpopulation.

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