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Inaugural Crowds: The View from Space
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ShareJanuary 21, 2009 1:34 PM
ABC News' Lisa Stark Reports: If you were jammed into the National Mall yesterday to watch President Obama's swearing in, it must have felt as though the whole nation was packed in with you. Well, not quite. But you were celebrating with more than a million of your closest friends.
Now there's a scientific estimate of the hordes that braved the Washington D.C. cold for the historic day. The estimate is based on a bird's eye view of the festivities -- or more precisely, a view from space. 
"It kind of looked like bees in a hive," said Allison Puccioni, a senior imagery analyst for IHS Jane's, who scrutinized the pictures to get the crowd estimate.
Puccioni said her usual job involves scrutinizing satellite imagery to look for things like for submarines in China.
The picture, from the Geo-Eye1 satellite, shows the crowd packed in at 11:19am ET, 47 minutes before the official oath of office was administered. The image wasn't taken closer to the time of the event because at 11:19, the Geo Eye-1 satellite circling 423 miles above the earth happened to be in the right spot to snap the shot.
To estimate the crowd, London-based IHS Jane's took old satellite photos of the area and then took what it calls precise geospatial measurements of 71 different sectors. That picture was compared to the image take on inauguration day.
IHS Jane's determined the crowd density was from .1 to 5 people per square meter. Five people per square meter translates to one person per two square feet. It then determined how many folks were in each of the 71 sectors and added them up. The company concluded that there were between 1.031 million and 1.411 million people shivering and cheering and waiting.
The number doesn't include the nearly quarter of a million people who were in the designated ticket area. Add them into the mix and you get 1.271 to 1.651 million.
It also doesn't count the people present in the federal buildings and doesn't extend over toward the White House area. On top of that, there were still people pouring out of the Smithsonian Metro Station at the time the photo was taken – so the crowd probably got thicker than shown in the satellite photo.
So the crowds may not have approached the 4 million some were predicting but there was still a record number of people were present for a record-setting day.
Of sizing up the inaugural crowds, Puccioni said, "It wasn't what I expected." She said she thought there would be a more even continuation of people throughout the mall, but instead found people were more crowded in some areas and less in others as they moved into their positions for the event.
She also said conventional wisdom is that a maximum of about six people can fit into a square meter. She said that's like the front row of a rock concert, or probably how crowded it was in Chicago's Grant Park the night Obama won the presidency. But, she said, with the cold weather and heavy parka's – it was only possible to squeeze in a maximum of 5 bundled people a square meter.
Puccioni, who has been analyzing satellite photos for 15 years, said, "This was quite an enjoyable task for sure."
January 21, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (17)
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A better perspective might be to imagine moving the entire population of the city of Philidelphia into the National Mall.
Posted by: devilkev | Jan 21, 2009 2:05:53 PM
The amount of folks on the Mall yesterday, if it's 1 million, is about how many go downtown Chicago on July 3rd every year, to watch the fireworks from Navy Pier.
Posted by: Interested08 | Jan 21, 2009 2:54:15 PM
The amount of folks on the Mall yesterday, if it's 1 million, is about how many go downtown Chicago on July 3rd every year, to watch the fireworks from Navy Pier.
Posted by: Interested08
*******************************
I'm sure if it were warmer, the crowds
would have been considerably larger. The
analysts and I agree that this was taken a little
too early, though, with this type accuracy,
I'm sure the previous record holders had
smaller crowds also. We tend to go with
larger numbers in guesstimations anyway.
Posted by: spacerook1 | Jan 21, 2009 3:14:55 PM
When is ABC going to get this image right?
Posted by: MBNA Joe | Jan 21, 2009 4:37:50 PM
This photo represents the fact that on Obama's first day in office....he changed the world!!
Posted by: Paula | Jan 21, 2009 5:07:07 PM
Impeach Obama!!!!!!!
Posted by: Patricio | Jan 21, 2009 6:14:43 PM
Where's Waldo?????
Posted by: Sax4ever | Jan 21, 2009 7:08:22 PM
The number surely gives an idea of how much the people want change. This definitely puts a huge responsibility on Obama's shoulders. May God give him strength to come to our expectations.
Posted by: Nalini Datta | Jan 22, 2009 8:15:03 AM
Going to the inauguration was a challenge for many. All the highways were closed except to authorized vehicles. Subways were absolutely jammed from 4 a.m. on. Going took determination. I know many who had tickets, that did not get in. I count myself among the lucky who got on the mall before 7 a.m. as the sun was rising. We got as close as the first jumbotron on the left. Could see the capitol dome in the distance. That said, I would not have gotten there or knew how to get there without the help of a friend who lives there.
Posted by: Inauguration attendee | Jan 22, 2009 11:45:37 AM
I imagined alot of people who missed work to attend the inauguation. Does anyone have figures on employee absenteeism on that day?
Posted by: tieaquilt | Jan 22, 2009 1:23:46 PM
tieaquilt---many people worked tha MLK holiday and used the comp day to atend and witness the inauguration and also celebrate MLK on the same day. people who attended either took the day off, called in sick, whatever. no employers said "have the day off"---so don't worry nobody got anything for free. same as when Bush was inaugurated. don't get so excited.
Posted by: Paul Wall | Jan 22, 2009 5:07:09 PM
Hmmm, when you zoom in, you can almost make out the tons of garbage they left lying around.
Posted by: Grand Old Party | Jan 22, 2009 8:29:52 PM
Wonder how much the body heat of all those people raised the average temperature on the ground there.... I mean given the density, I figure anyone not near the edges should be down right toasty....
Posted by: PM | Jan 23, 2009 2:02:28 AM
it's cool they looked like ants..
Posted by: greg | Jan 23, 2009 6:15:27 AM
No garbage or trash left; exceptionally clean--afterall, it is OUR country, and we who were there took responsiblity for our actions and put our values on display from DAY ONE. Stop cynicism--restore common sense.
Posted by: walterrhett | Jan 25, 2009 2:59:39 PM
That's a cool picture, would of been better if zoomed in some more. There's that other cool picture as well, the panoramic one. It was like 1200mp or something, it has unbelievable zoom. Don't got the link to it though.
Posted by: Rajbir D | Feb 1, 2009 9:38:00 PM
i agree, let's impeach Mr. Obama
Posted by: ean | Mar 15, 2009 9:10:49 PM
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