Who Owns the World's Land?

[Jonny R]

Fascinating read...this is a transcript of a speech written by a British author who set out to chronicle who actually owns the land of the world. It's a very interesting read.

I never realised that British house owners are actually still serfs

http://www.rsa.org.uk/acrobat/cahill_280606.pdf

[darwins_ghost]

I am betting Bill Gates has a nice chunk.

[Jonny R]

I think he's probably very much still small-fry at the moment in terms of land ownership.

[Jonny R]

A few interesting stats for those who don't like to read too much. An acre is about the size of a football pitch.

The land of the earth is about 36,900 million acres. There are 6.5 billion people living on the earth. People living in urban areas are concentrated at about 10 per acre.

The entire population of the earth lives on about 350 million acres, leaving another 20 billion habitable acres with no one on them.

For approximately 9,800 years of recorded history 1% of the population of humans owned land.

Today about 15% of humans own land. The same 15% of humans are prosperous.

Prior to 1900 the land ownership rate in the UK was 1%. Now 70% of the UK own land.

57% of the land on the planet is owned by a feudal state or monarch (e.g. the King of Saudi, the Chinese State, the Russian State).

52 families in Spain own 30% of the agricultural land.

China has reduced poverty in rural areas in the last ten years from 80% to 46% through the issuing of long term leases to people who then have the right to farm their own land and market the product.

The Catholic Church owns land within 163 countries, including embassies of the Vatican.

Trust lands of Islamic mosques account for roughly 20% of the land of Egypt, and in excess of 3-400 million acres worldwide.

Buddhism and Hinduism also have sizable holdings...

Read the rest yourself...

[Gearjoneser]

I'm glad someone took the time to do that. Interesting read. I'm sure the research was difficult in some regions. Governments don't like some guy outlining everything in black and white, I'd imagine.

[Jonny R]

The stuff on farming in Europe is really interesting, as is the fact that homeowners in England actually have long leases from the Queen.