Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Country
China
India
United States
Indonesia
Brazil
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Population
1,306,313,812
1,080,264,388
295,734,134
241,973,879
186,112,794
162,419,946
144,319,628
Russia
Nigeria
Japan
143,420,309
128,771,988
127,417,244
Mexico 106,202,903
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

As you’ll note from the above Table – of the 11 countries with populations greater than 100 million people,
India and China have by far the greatest number of “mouths to feed”, representing over 60% of the population in these eleven countries, and approximately 30% of the worlds entire population. (When John first started speaking 15 years ago, there were only 7 or 8 countries with populations over 100 million.)
Russia doesn’t appear until number 8 on the list, and is a far cry from the billion plus of both India and China
– a virtual also-ran in the population race. However, for investing purposes, is it appropriate to only look at the number of potential “mouths to feed”? What about the infrastructure needed to put the food on the table or a Coke in every fridge? What about simply having a refrigerator in every home? How much raw material will be needed to begin to put what we call “the basics” in homes across
India and China? In order to continue to develop, China and India (as well as the rest of the developing world) will need to develop infrastructure as well as goods. This will require vast amounts of raw material to meet this pent-up and growing demand.
Let’s contrast the population distribution we outlined above, with that of the world’s geographic distribution.
While you’ll note in the table below that there is some overlap (suggesting correlation) between the most populous countries and those with the most land mass… their rank order is significantly different.
8
9
10
5
6
7
11
1
2
3
4
Rank Country
Russia
Population Land
Area
Sq meters per person
143,420,309 17075200 119,057.1
Brazil 186,112,794 8511965 45,735.5
United States 295,734,134 9629091 32,560.0
Mexico 106,202,903 1,923,040 18,107.2
Indonesia
China
Nigeria
Pakistan
India
Japan
241,973,879
1,306,313,812
128,771,988
162,419,946
1,080,264,388
127,417,244
Bangladesh 144,319,628
1,826,440
9596960
910,770
778,720
3287590
374,744
133,910
7,548.1
7,346.6
7,072.7
4,794.5
3,043.3
2,941.1
927.9
6
7
8
9
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
Country
Russia
Canada
United States
China
Brazil
Australia
India
Argentina
Kazakhstan
Area [sq. km]
17,075,200
9,976,140
9,629,091
9,596,960
8,511,965
7,686,850
3,287,590
2,766,890
2,717,300
If we make a simple assumption – that natural resources are correlated with land area -- this suggests that the distribution of those resources does not correlate well with how the population is currently distributed.
You’ll note that if you add Russia and its sister state
(Kazakhstan) together, their land mass is roughly twice that of the next closest contender (Canada), with China
Forrests Forrests
Rank
4
5
Country Population Sq Km
(000)
Km per person
1
2
Russia
Brazil
143,420,309
186,112,794
8,514
5,325
0.059
0.029
3 United States 295,734,134 2,260 0.008
China
Indonesia
1,306,313,812 1,635 0.001
241,973,879 1,055 0.004
6
7
8
India
Mexico
Japan
1,080,264,388 641 0.001
106,202,903 552 0.005
127,417,244 241 0.002
9
10
Nigeria
Pakistan
128,771,988
162,419,946
11 Bangladesh 144,319,628
135
25
13
0.001
0.000
0.000

the disparity increases greatly when reviewing timber on a per person basis, leaning again heavily toward Russia. However, one might expect timber to be somewhat correlated to land mass.
To be sure, Russia was the largest producer of palladium and nickel (20% of world output), and ranked second in the production of aluminum and platinumgroup metals (PGMs), third in potash, sixth in gold, and seventh in mine copper. Russia is also a large producer of bauxite, coal, cobalt, diamonds, lead, mica, natural gas, oil, tin, zinc, and many other metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels. Let’s look a little deeper at natural gas, as that’s been in the news of late.
Using the same countries, we find the following rough estimates of proved recoverable Natural Gas reserves:
8
9
6
7
10
11
Rank Country Population Proved recov. nat. gas
(BCM)
1
2
Russia
Nigeria
Per
Capita
143,420,309 47,730 32,798
128,771,988 3,515 27,296
3 United
States
295,734,134 4,740 16,028
4 Indonesia 241,973,879 2,212 9,141
5 Mexico 106,202,903 861 8,107
Pakistan 162,419,946
Brazil
China
India
Japan
144,319,628
186,112,794
127,417,244
581
301
231
1,368
647
39
3,577
2,086
1,241
1,047
599
306
Note: BCM – billions of cubic meters