Close to Half of Iceland's Population Uses Facebook

Studies, reports and statistics can be powerful tools but visual representation will win over countless numbers most of the times. A picture is worth a thousand words after all, maybe less now with the economy being the way it is but still. So, while Facebook's 250 million registered users may sound impressive on its own, it's a totally different thing to see it put in perspective, which is just what the people at Buzzpoint, a Los Angeles social media marketing firm, did putting together several interesting stats into one giant image.

The first part puts the size of the social network in an interesting context asking the question “What if Facebook was a country?” Well, if Facebook was its own country it would actually be the fourth in the world at the official 250,000 million users mark. The only countries with a larger population would be China, India and the US. But considering the social network’s growth, this placement may not stand for long as the user numbers are more than a month old, which in Facebook time means practically decades (it took the site just two months to get 50 million more users), and it may soon pass the US with its 307 million users/citizens if it hasn't already.

Another interesting statistic is Facebook's user numbers broken down by country. The largest number of users, by far, comes from the US, with close to 70 million Americans using the social network. This has been true for the past three years but the rate at which it grew, almost tripling in one year, is impressive. The US is followed by the UK with close to 19 million users, but the number three is somewhat of a surprise. Turkey now has the third biggest population on Facebook, growing from almost 3.5 million users in 2008 to 12.3 million today.

Finally when looking at the percentage of the population that is using the social network in a country there are some very interesting entries. Facebook has become so popular in Island that almost half of the country now uses it, with 150,000 out of the – admittedly small – 320,000-strong population having an account. The social network is also very popular in Norway where 40 percent of the people use it and in Denmark too with 38 percent.