A South African’s Guide to Moving to and Making it in Malta: People Who Need People

Original Story Published by: Marcus “The Maltese Falcon” Brewster for Bizcommunity
Photo Source: © viewingmalta.com | Malta Tourism Authority

One of the advantages of living on the other side of the equator to South Africa is that it gives you a different perspective - on everything! Just as the night sky occasions different names for constellations and astronomical phenomena according to which hemisphere you view them from, so I was led to look at a recent report about population density through the other end of the telescope. 

Atlasandboots.com did the heavy lifting in ranking 237 nations from least densely populated to most (table below). If you subscribe to Sartre’s dictum that hell is other people, then consider relocating to Antarctica, Greenland, Svalbard or the Falklands, as each of these boast a population density of less than 1 person per km2. 

As a benchmark, South Africa sits at position #73 in terms of least densely populated, clocking in at 44.99 persons per km2. 

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Reading backwards 

But when I flipped the list around to read it backwards, i.e. the most crowded places in the world, I found it made for much more interesting reading – and that Malta is one of the top 10 most densely populated countries on the map. 

Starting with the least elbow-room, Macau has a staggering population density of 21,346.42 pax per km2. The next three positions went to Monaco (15,322.5), Singapore (8,188.16) and Hong Kong (6,490.53). Apart from not offering much room to swing a cat, these jurisdictions are notable for their high property prices, indicating some sort of demand-supply correlation.