What percentage of people in the world has never seen snow?

The above title is a question I encountered on Quora, a new website I recently joined that's like Yahoo or Google Answers but slightly more intellectual.

It got me to thinking: how to answer this question?
I thought, you'd have to go through each country, one by one, and make an informed guess based on that country's specific geographical and socioeconomic conditions. Then add them all up and find the average.

Well, that would take all day. But I did it for the 10 most populous countries.
Maybe someone else could pick up with the next 10?

1. First of all, China, the world's most populous country, is out of consideration. Most Chinese people live in areas that do experience snow, and even those in the subtropical south have experienced freak snowstorms.
Population: 1,342,290,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 5%
Total never seen snow: 67,114,000

2. Next down the population list is India. Apart from the Himalayan region, its safe to say that the vast majority of Indians have probably never seen snow (unless they have traveled to the Himalayas, or Swizterland).

Population: 1,193,970,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 95%
Total never seen snow: 1,134,271,000

3. The United States has seen massive immigration to the "sunbelt" stretching from California to Florida for the last half-century. Many Americans live in regions which are snowless year-round. However, its a safe bet that the vast majority of Americans have at least seen snow at some time in their life, on vacation, ski-trips, etc.

Population: 312,049,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 5%
Total never seen snow: 15,602,000

4. Indonesia has a few snow-capped peaks but they are isolated. Most Indonesians live in tropical regions and have probably never seen snow.

Population: 237,556,363
Estimated % never seen snow: 90%
Total never seen snow: 213,800,000

5. Brazil has a huge tropical rainforest which never sees snow. Most of the population however lives in the temperate southeastern regions which can and do experience snow in the winter, so its a safe bet the majority of the country's population has seen the white stuff.

Population: 190,732,694
Estimated % never seen snow: 20%
Total never seen snow: 38,146,000

6. Pakistan. Like India, it contains some very snow parts in the Himalayas. But many Pakistanis live in hotter regions which don't experience snow. The mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan do contain a sizable population in an area that does snow, however.

Population: 171,816,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 70%
Total never seen snow: 120,271,000

7. Nigeria. My Nigerian geography is not as good, but my guess is that this populous country does not see a lot of snow.

Population: 158,259,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 80%
Total never seen snow: 126,607,000

8. Bangladesh. It doesn't snow anywhere in this highly densely populated country.

Population: 150,035,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 99%
Total never seen snow: 148,545,000

9. Russia. I think its a safe bet that every Russian has seen snow. (Before the breakup of the Soviet Union that would not necessarily have been true, but now that the mostly desert "Stans" are independent, what remains of Russia experiences some of the most intense winters on Earth)

Population: 141,927,297
Estimated % never seen snow: 1%
Total never seen snow: 1,429,000

10. Japan. The north island of Hokkaido is very snowy in winter. I think most of Japan experiences at least occasional snow, except for the tropical southern islands of Okinawa. But even those in non-snowy regions have probably seen snow. Japanese travel a lot.

Population: 127,370,000
Estimated % never seen snow: 3%
Total never seen snow: 3,821,000


Of the 10 countries above, the total number of people who have not seen snow is 1,869,606,000. The total population of those 10 countries is 4,026,005,000.
That means about 46% of people on Earth have not seen snow.



As for the countries that didn't get counted above, those which together make up about 2 billion people we can make some generalizations.

The equatorial regions of South America, Africa, as well as the desert regions of the Middle East, see the least snow on earth. They are also home to some of the most populous countries, and the poorest (in other words, people are less likely to travel). Together these regions have about 1.5 billion people.

Europe, I think its safe to say, almost everyone has seen snow. Even those in Mediterranean Spain and Italy have probably traveled to snowy northern Europe. Europe has about 500 million people.





So the overall world total of people who haven't seen snow is probably a bit higher than 46%, maybe higher than 50%.