# Estimating crowds **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2000, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034 "2000-10-31T03:32:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/1 "2000-10-31T03:32:36Z")
This topic is often politically charged, but I’m bringing it up in the context of the more benign issue of the Yankee victory parade. The parade down the “Canyon of Heroes” had an estimated crowd by police of 1,000,000. To me this number seems nearly impossible. I estimated the parade route to be three miles long (Battery Park to City Hall). Since people can stand on both sides of the street, I decided to just do the math for 500,000 people. I assume that each person takes up on average three feet of the sidewalk or street. That means that there are 5280 “slots” as it were for people to stand in along one side of Broadway. To fit 500,000 people into 5280 slots, they would have to be standing over 94 deep along one entire side of the street. (94.697 by my calculator). The NY Times article said that the crowd was sometimes 12 deep. If that were the case, I would estimate the crowd to be in the 120,000 person range, which seems believeable. The Pasadena Police Department always say that there are a million people along the Rose Parade route on New Year’s Day and that’s not the case. So, does my math make sense or am I making some sort of basic error in my calculations? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/2 "2000-10-31T04:01:52Z")
I think you’re probably right. I find it difficult to believe that one in eight New Yorkers went there to celebrate the series. ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/3 "2000-10-31T04:09:45Z")
Maybe they didn’t mean all at once? If people walk up, watch for a few minutes, then leave, do they still count? Also, maybe they’re including people watching from buildings. It still seems pretty high, though. Arjuna34 ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/4 "2000-10-31T05:03:24Z")
The article about the parade on [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) said that some people thought there were 2 million people at the parade. Even if you include people who just walked by for a few seconds (and why would you since they no one is going to try to cut through a parade route to get someplace) and people looking out the windows of surrounding buildings, that would mean that nearly everybody in Lower Manhattan was goofing off during the parade. ---
**Author:** ![Nanook\_of\_the\_North\_Shore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@Nanook\_of\_the\_North\_Shore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanook_of_the_North_Shore)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/5 "2000-10-31T05:43:46Z")
Keep in mind that people come from outside Manhattan as well, such as Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, the Bronx, Jersey, etc etc. Of course, I agree that a million is still prolly high, but it always happens that way. ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/6 "2000-10-31T06:05:25Z")
IIRC, the National Park Service no longer does crowd estimations, as they have been criticized for their methods and their numbers questioned. Whenever their is a large gathering and different sources do counting, their numbers rarely mesh. ---
**Author:** ![Bobort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bobort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobort)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/7 "2000-10-31T06:07:26Z")
I had a look at my map of Manhattan and it looks like the distance from Battery Park up to Chambers St. (North end of City Hall Park) is almost exactly one mile. 3 miles north of Battery Park puts you almost at Union Sq. I think a person probably takes up less than 3 feet of sidewalk space, but 2 million people still sounds ridiculous. I think the population of Manhattan is on the order of 1.5 million. 8 million is all 5 boroughs. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/8 "2000-10-31T06:35:25Z")
So, if it’s only a mile long, it’s even more inconceivable that there were a million people along the route. That would require crowds over 200 deep. Even if someone needs less than three feet, you still can’t fit a million people in that small an area. Remember the people are limited mostly to the sidewalk and a small portion of the street. Try to line up people as close as you possibly can from a spot about 5 feet off the curb until you hit a building. It won’t be that many people. The Rose Parade route is 5 miles long and mathematicians at Caltech estimated that the crowd is no more than 300,000 people along the route. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/9 "2000-10-31T06:42:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by andygirl \* > \*\*IIRC, the National Park Service no longer does crowd estimations, as they have been criticized for their methods and their numbers questioned. Whenever their is a large gathering and different sources do counting, their numbers rarely mesh. \*\* To further clarify, the reason they stopped estimating crowd sizes is because advocacy groups would hold protest marches, what have you, around the capitol, and then get pissed when the Park Service would give a realistic estimate that discredited their own self-inflated numbers. (Million Man March, anyone?) 1-2 million New Yorkers seems rather high, though I could easily believe a couple hundred thousand. [This site](http://www.timessquarebid.org/web/Hot_Stats/hot_stats.html), FWIW, says Times Square gets 500,000 people at New Years. I somehow doubt twice that number turned out for the Yankees. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@That\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/10 "2000-10-31T06:56:47Z")
To estimate crowds correctly, pick the number you want and divide that by the number who fit into a block of the street, and then estimate that to be the number of blocks. That’s how they get Million-whoever marches. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estimating-crowds/39034/11 "2000-10-31T16:20:00Z")
[Here](http://enquirer.com/editions/1999/09/05/loc_riverfest_crowd.html) is a hilarious article about crowd estimates of the Cincinnati Riverfest. > [@](#): > > ``` > Nothing stops Cincinnati's annual Riverfest celebration from drawing 500,000 people. Every year, the advance stories come out in newspapers, radio and television that the big fireworks event is “expected” to draw 500,000 people. Every year, no matter what, the crowd reaches an “estimated” 500,000 people. It rained in 1993. Crowd estimate: 500,000. Alcohol sales were banned in 1994. Crowd estimate: 500,000. Nothing bad happened to chase people away in 1996. Crowd estimate: 500,000. > > In 1997, Cincinnati police refused to make a crowd estimate, citing a lawsuit filed against Washington, D.C., police over disputed crowd estimates of the Million Man March in 1995. Promoters' and the media's crowd estimate for Riverfest: 500,000. > > ``` > > But there is an accepted way to estimate a crowd. You measure the event space, then take aerial photographs, then lay a properly scaled grid over the photos to show the people in 10-foot-by-10-foot squares. Then you count the people in one typical-looking square and multiply that figure by all the squares in the event grid.