Which spot on earth have the most human beings set foot?

Well, a dearth of information. But this chart implies that the population of China was no more than 60 million until 1600 or so. I have no idea how to interpret that number - but China is a giant country geographically - 32x the size of modern day Italy. So those 60 million were dispersed over a wide area, while Rome had a dense core for maybe 600 years. I am not sure how to interpret all this. Anyway, Rome was founded around 800 bc, probably - I doubt Chinese cities have much on it that way. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1950_population.htm___

Parochial Boy wrote:

I think there are some Chinese cities, like Nanjing, Xi'an or Chengdu which not only dwarf Rome for size nowadays but are also much, much older than it. For instance, Xi'an has a population of about 9 million now and its history goes way back to before 1000BC

agip wrote:

Rome has had close to a million people for maybe 600 years (including the present day period) - that is hard to beat, esp because the ancients' life expectancy was so short - new little Romans padding around all the time. Plus it was the center of empire and now millions of tourists visit every year...

http://davidgalbraith.org/trivia/graph-of-the-population-of-rome-through-history/2189/

The big Asian cities will need molte anni to catch up.

Not that I have any reason to believe that Augustus or this web site,

http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php

But it claims that Rome had nearly 5 million inhabitants in 14AD.

I think Times Square has had a tremendous amount of foot traffic.

But another spot that comes to mind is the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple. It was build around 200bc and has close to 40000 visitors daily not including the festival Brahmotsavam where close 4-500000 show up. Who knows if it had 40000 visitors in 100 bc or not but I think you have to look at places with tremendous longevity.

At 14,600,000 per year over the last 100 years, not including Brahmotsavam the place has had 1.5billion visitors. Basically it is keeping pace with time square but has been around much longer.

Masjid al-Haram is the biggest mosque in the world and surrounds the Kaaba which is the holiest site in Islam. The site is crowded but not at capacity on a daily basis and during the Hajj reports I have seen estimates that the mosque will hold close to 5million people on a daily basis. So once again you are looking at 12-15 million visitors per year.

The Colosseum has had a bunch of people in it. Built in 80AD with a capacity of maybe 50000 people. What if they had an event everyday for 4 or 5 centuries? Thats close to 100million butts in the seats.

The Jacksonville Jaguars would kill for that kind of attendance for 8 days.

agip wrote:

Well, a dearth of information. But this chart implies that the population of China was no more than 60 million until 1600 or so. I have no idea how to interpret that number - but China is a giant country geographically - 32x the size of modern day Italy. So those 60 million were dispersed over a wide area, while Rome had a dense core for maybe 600 years.

I am not sure how to interpret all this.

Anyway, Rome was founded around 800 bc, probably - I doubt Chinese cities have much on it that way.

Yeah, I wouldnt claim to be an expert, but, looking at Wikipedia, Xi'an, in its various guises both predated Rome as the world's largest city, and replaces it as it. It had, possibly 200-3000000 people before Rome really emerged as a major power, and its population rose to 1,000,000 within a few centuries after the decline of Rome. It is also about twice the size nowadays.

I guess its really a question of which was at its height for longest. And in any case, no-one really accurately knows the historical populations of anywhere, what with the lack of censuses and records 2000 years ago. Just look at the wildly varying estimates on the wiki article.

I think Masjid al-Haram has got to be it

The other thing that needs to be defined is what OP means by "setting foot" on something. Does that mean a geographical point, like a GPS location? Or an actual physical object like a square foot of sidewalk or a paving stone?

In the case of Rome, for instance, people have set foot on geographical points within Rome for several millenia, but not on the same physical object. The Pantheon in Rome for instance is supposedly the oldest building still in use. It was built as a temple in 27BC, but later rebuilt by Hadrain, was turned into a Christian church and has been in use for over 2000 years more or less. I doubt however, that there are any stones in the floor that people have actually been setting foot on for that entire time because they would have worn away or been replaced in various rebuildings or repairs.

I am convinced it is the Masjid al-Haram.

Maybe someone could clarify this but I know a few things. First there are prayers inside the Masjid al-Haram 5 times a day. Worshipers also go around the Kaaba 7 times. I dont know if the worshipers go around the Kaaba 7 times during each prayer session. If they did you are looking at a couple of million plus people circumnavigating the Kaaba 7 times, 5 times a day for a week.

Do people who live in Mecca do this everyday?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2aNDJhbA3g

I don't think there is a large crowd every day - the huge numbers are just during the pilgrimage, no? Plus, I suspect there is a high percentage of return visitors, which don't count under our rules.

old coach man wrote:

I am convinced it is the Masjid al-Haram.

Maybe someone could clarify this but I know a few things. First there are prayers inside the Masjid al-Haram 5 times a day. Worshipers also go around the Kaaba 7 times. I dont know if the worshipers go around the Kaaba 7 times during each prayer session. If they did you are looking at a couple of million plus people circumnavigating the Kaaba 7 times, 5 times a day for a week.

Do people who live in Mecca do this everyday?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2aNDJhbA3g

random a hole wrote:

I think "spot on earth" needs to be more exactly defined. Is OP using "set foot" literally or figuratively?

The answer could be beneath a turnstile in a Tokyo subway.

You may be on to something there. According to a source, Shinjuku Station in Tokyo averaged 3.64 million people PER DAY in 2007.

That's 1.3 billion people per year. By contrast, Penn Station - the busiest in North America - only averaged 600,000 per day.

And consider this: The Rome urban area has about 4 million residents while greater Tokyo has over 30 million.

this place is catching up! most crowded place on Earth!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlyloz_life-in-mong-kok-the-world-s-most-crowded-place_lifestyle

I think there are separate criteria going on - total feet vs total unique feet. In other words, if I walk through Times Square 1,000 times today, does that count once or 1,000 times?

We should probably try to get to two separate answers.

If we count repeat visits, that subway station in japan is hard to beat, unless there is something even bigger in China.

But those are virtually all repeat visitors, so they don't count in the other competition.

I am going with Damascus.

agip wrote:

I think there are separate criteria going on - total feet vs total unique feet. In other words, if I walk through Times Square 1,000 times today, does that count once or 1,000 times?

...

And what about "setting foot"? I'd hate to bring up the minimalist thing, but how should we count "setting shoe" against "setting bare foot"?!

WhitePony wrote:

Mecca?

that'd be my guess

Eiffel Tower

You had to go and bring up the "criteria for being a real man" thing again?

Mecca has only been a pilgrimmage site for a short while and may have only been founded in the 5th century BCE. Damascus has over 11000 continuous years of human habitation.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Mecca has only been a pilgrimmage site for a short while and may have only been founded in the 5th century BCE. Damascus has over 11000 continuous years of human habitation.

While that may be true, I think people are overemphasizing a long history. Let's say that Damascus averaged 100,000 inhabitants over the last 1,000 years. That equals a total of 100 million people. Now consider a city of 20 million (Mumbai, for example). If you average that over only 5 years it's also = 20 million.

Tokyo has been the largest city in Japan for 400 years or so and has been the largest city in the world for around 50 years. Today its population is maybe 15 times greater than Damascus so it would not take long to overcome Damascus' historical advantage.

The spot on the floor directly in front of Christina Aguilera's refrigerator door.