Population weighted density is a better metric for this use case. It's more stable than population density when adding large areas of sparsely populated land, because the denser, more highly populated areas are more heavily weighted. It shows, roughly, the density experienced locally by the average person in some region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_weighted_density

The problem is it's difficult to compare across polities because nobody will agree on the right granularity of parcel size to use (and indeed, it is not really obvious what the right granularity is, and choice of parcel size can drastically change the number).

It's similar to the metrics of "average class size" vs. "student-weighted class size". https://allenschwenk.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/0...

> That is an utterly meaningless statistic

It's very meaningful, when the main argument is population overcrowding.