[cmrdporcupine]

The right comparison would be with the area and population of southern & maybe eastern Ontario and use that. Northern Ontario is really just something else. Anything north of the line where the Canadian shield begins becomes basically unarable and extremely low population density. And once you get past e.g. Timmins, there's really ... "nothing." (Pretty though.)

I don't have the patience to go look this up, but obv it will clearly be below Istanbul, but likely about equivalent with most of the US atlantic region and maybe even parts of the UK etc.

Istanbul/Constantinople, ... a heavily populated city for like 2000 years, not to mention the region going back to the, uh, paleolithic and it's literally basically the origin of ... farming and settled agriculture. Kinda weird comparison.

[haldujai]

> maybe eastern Ontario

What do you mean by "maybe"? Eastern Ontario contains the 4th largest metropolitan area in Canada (Ottawa) which is a very reasonable comparator, the density is 195/km.

[cmrdporcupine]

IT's just there are large parts of what is classified as "eastern Ontario" that is kinda similar to the near-north ; not arable, shield & cottage country, and sparsely populated. So it doesn't feel fair. But yes, Ottawa clearly a major centre.