"China faces a formidable challenge in fashioning a development strategy simply because of the density of its population. Although it has almost the exact same amount of land as the United States, most of China's 1.3 billion people (circa 2001) live in a 1,500 kilometer (900 mile) strip on the eastern and southern coasts. Reaching the equivalent population density in the United States would require squeezing the entire U.S. population into the area east of the Mississippi and then multiplying it by four."

- Lester R. Brown, "Eco-Economy", 2001