title: Preliminary representation of world population by spherical harmonics.
abstract: The geographical arrangement of people on the surface of the earth is approximated by a mathematical equation of 361 terms. This is a convenient form for comparison with other distributions and for use in global change studies, and it has other advantages, but it must be considered preliminary because of data limitations.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Geographical Information and Analysis, Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tobler