Inhabited Land
Inhabited land is the opposite to Unused Land or Abandoned Land. It is owned or rented by residents. This is the most important land in Second Life. There, you can find buildings on ground or skyboxes, residential buildings, shops or different other buildings. Not to be confused with Protected Land, that is owned by the Linden officials on mainland or by estate owners on private land.
Mainland
According to Gridsurvey, 13.4% to 14.2% of Mainland by area is Abandoned Land, while 49.0% of Mainland owned directly by Linden Accounts (Protected Land and sometimes Unused Land). Only about 37% of all mainland is in fact owned by residents. Not all of this is inhabited land, part of it is Unused Land (land for rent that is not rented by somebody, land for sale waiting customer or land that is not currently used by its owner). The amount of inhabited land cannot be measured with high precision. Also, high variations are seen from a continent to another.
Status by continents
Blake Sea has a large surface of Protected Land, mainly waters. A percent ratio between inhabited and uninhabited land (unused or abandoned) is about 4/1.
Corsica is a special type of continent, since land corporations own here more land then in other continents. High concentration of inhabited land is near the coast. It looks like about 50% of rental land is inhabited and this percent varies from place to place. Overall, Corsica might be considered an average continent in percent of inhabited land.
Gaeta 1 holds the record of the lowest density of inhabited land. Even if a large surface is owned by land corporations, not many residents go there to rent land.
Gaeta 5 is a low-populated continent, mainly in its central parts. The coast is much more populated.
Heterocera has the record of most populated continent. Land corporations own a single sim, Royal, while he largest surface of the continent is directly owned by residents. This is the result of a very high-developed infrastructure that includes a continental railway & road system and a network of waterways in its center.
Jeogeot has many inhabited areas near the shores, while central parts of dryland are less populated.
Nautilus is also an interesting continent by the fact that places near the coast are highly populated, in a shocking contrast with continental highlands. Sometimes, inhabited land form a large line along the coast that blocks access from shore to inner continental land.
Sansara can be easy divided in two groups. The old parts of Sansara have a high population density, similar to Hterocera. The reason for this is the high-developed infrastrcture and the fact that Geographic features and ground textures are very different from a place to another. However, in South-East, there are sims with no inhabited land. For unknown reasons, parts of Bay City are slowly getting abandoned.
Satori has a smaller density of inhabited land then Corsica, but higher then Jeogeot.
Sharp Continent, the remaining of old teen grid, has a smaller population density then old Sansara, but higher then the average of mainland continents.
Zindra is the exception of the list. Many skyboxes exist in Zindra, thing that makes very difficult to estimate the amount of inhabited land. Overall, Zindra has a very high density of avatars per sim, sometimes the highest of all mainland continents, but percent of inhabited land is smaller then Heterocera. The reason for this is that some land, owned by land corporations, is not rented, while many parcels are unused and for sale at high prices.
Other types of mainland
Premium Continents have the highest density of inhabited land, estimated to 70% of their entire surface. This is represented by the premium homes hosted on them.
Non-continental land is formed by a few sims close to Sansara. Usually, these places are composed of protected land and many of them have no public access. They are listed below:
- A161 (Lindenworld), Estate Sea - Little Pacific Ocean sim cluster with two microcontinents, almost all sims with no access
- A176, Premium Sea - Southern Ocean, premium railway & premium snowlands
- A181 (Learning - Social) - Central Ocean - Linden owned
- A182 (Linden Estate) - Central Ocean
More information can be found here: List Of Microcontinents And Sim Clusters.
Private Land
It is impossible to give data with high accuracy about private-owned land, but an overall analyse shows that inhabited land is more frequent then on mainland continents. Also, it is important that this article will not be in favor of an estate and will not accuse another one, so no data will be displayed here. The only thing that can be said is that percents of inhabited land, Protected Land and Unused Land vary from 0 to 100% throughout the grid.