Overview

Population Explorer (PopEx) is not just a tool for measuring how many people live in an area — it also helps you understand how those numbers are changing over time. Identifying population trends is central to long-term planning, whether you’re expanding retail operations, designing telecom infrastructure, allocating humanitarian resources, or managing national service coverage.

PopEx integrates time-series data from sources such as WorldPop and LandScan, allowing you to compare population patterns across years and interpret demographic change within the same spatial framework. When paired with administrative boundaries, buffers, or imported territories, this temporal view transforms static datasets into actionable insights about growth, decline, and migration.

Why Population Trends Matter Across Workflows

Retail and Franchise Expansion

• Identify markets with growing population density or rising household income to prioritize new store openings.

• Spot declining trade areas before saturation erodes profitability.

• Compare past and current population layers to visualize shifts in consumer concentration.

Sales and Service Territories

• Detect demographic drift — when territories originally balanced by population begin diverging due to growth or decline.

• Reallocate territories using updated ASB results to maintain workload equity.

Telecom and Infrastructure Planning

• Pinpoint emerging growth corridors where new housing and commercial expansion are driving connectivity demand.

• Identify coverage zones that will require additional towers or capacity upgrades as populations expand.

Humanitarian and Development Response

• Monitor population growth around urban peripheries or refugee settlements.

• Compare population changes before and after natural disasters or major migration events.

• Prioritize infrastructure and service deployment in areas showing sustained population increase.

Understanding Population Data in PopEx

Population Explorer provides population data through globally harmonized models — LandScan and WorldPop — each of which publishes annual or near-annual estimates that can be visualized and compared through the PopEx interface.

Step-by-Step: Analyzing Population Trends in PopEx

1. Select Your Area of Interest: Open an existing Folder or create one using New → Create Folder. Choose a Boundary, Buffer, or Custom Polygon that defines your area of study.

2. Load a Baseline Population Layer: Go to Layers → Settings → Population → Source, and select your preferred dataset (WorldPop or LandScan). Choose the earliest available year for your analysis (e.g., 2016 for LandScan or 2024 for WorldPop).

3. Record Baseline Metrics: Select your boundary or buffer. The summary panel will display the ASB totals: Population, Population Density, and Average Income. Export these baseline results to Excel for comparison.

4. Switch to a Later Year: In Layers → Settings → Population → Year, select a newer dataset version. The map and ASB results will automatically update for your selected shape.

5. Compare Results: Record the new totals from the summary panel. Calculate percentage change using the formula (New - Old) / Old × 100. Repeat for multiple regions to identify where growth or decline is most significant.

6. Visualize Spatial Change: Toggle between years to visualize change patterns. Areas where population density shades intensify indicate growth; lighter zones indicate decline. Use Population Density Map view for clearer interpretation.

7. Contextualize with POIs and Income: Use the map search bar to identify new amenities, retail clusters, or infrastructure growth within your changing zones. Higher POI density often corresponds to population-driven economic expansion.

Best Practices for Trend Analysis

• Always compare the same dataset (WorldPop-to-WorldPop, not mixed) to ensure consistency.

• Normalize by area size if comparing irregular polygons or territories.

• Use administrative boundaries for regional analysis, and buffers for local trends.

• Complement with income metrics to distinguish between population growth and purchasing power change.

• Export your comparisons to build time-series dashboards or presentations.

Example Applications

Next Steps

• Population Density Map

• Census vs LandScan vs WorldPop

• Balancing Service Areas with Population

• About Our Data