We report on a project that converted subnational population data to a raster of cells on the earth. We note that studies using satellites as collection devices yield results indexed by latitude and longitude. Thus it makes sense to assemble the terrestrial arrangement of people in a compatible manner. This alternative is explored here, using latitude/longitude quadrilaterals as bins for population information. This format also has considerable advantages for analytical studies. Ways of achieving the objective include, among others, simple centroid sorts, interpolation, or gridding of polygons. The results to date of putting world boundary coordinates together with estimates of the number of people are described. The estimated 1994 population of 219 countries, subdivided into 19,032 polygons, has been assigned to over six million five minute by five minute quadrilaterals covering the world. These results are available over the Internet. The grid extends from latitude 57°S to 72°N, and covers 360° of longitude. Just under 31% of the (1548 by 4320) grid cells are populated. The number of people in these countries is estimated to be 5.6 billion, spread over 132 million km 2 of land. Extensions needed include continuous updating, additional social variables, improved interpolation methods, correlation with global change studies, and more detailed information for some parts of the world.
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