The Federation by the 24th century is indeed a very large union. I was wondering though, if there was any indication of which species formed the largest portion of the Federation's population by the 24th century (I don't mean to ask if there's a species that occupies greater than 50% of the Federation, but rather which member of the Federation (in terms of species) has the greatest population). I'm not asking for exact numbers either, as that would be particularly difficult I imagine, but rather if there is any reference to the species with the greatest population in any Trek materials.
asked May 1, 2014 at 8:23
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From what we've seen on screen I'd have to say human! Although I do wonder if that's Starfleet rather than the Federation?– LiathCommented May 1, 2014 at 9:48
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The Tkon certainly have the largest known population of any species ever encountered. I am unsure about Federation members though. We certainly see more humans than any other species, but this is possibly just because we are shown humans more often.– James SheridanCommented May 1, 2014 at 10:57
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3I would guess the Tribble? They seemed to procreate absurdly fast.– WolphCommented May 1, 2014 at 11:30
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1@Wolph: I almost said Tribbles, but they were driven extinct by the might Klingon Empire.– James SheridanCommented May 1, 2014 at 12:37
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1@KeithThompson - He specically asks about the Federation's population. To the best of my knowledge, no virus or bacterium is a member (yet) in any of the canon or non-canon materials– ValorumCommented May 2, 2014 at 14:21
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1 Answer
Geoffrey Mandel's "Star Trek : Star Charts" (which isn't generally considered truly canon but was at least 'advised on' by Senior Trek Designer Michael Okuda) indicates that the homeworld population of Andoria was 38.2 Billion, representing some 3.2% of the total population of the Federation of just under 1 trillion.
Per this excellent answer we can reasonably assert that the Human population (including Earth and its associated colonies) was anything between 12 and 20 Billion in the same time period, representing some 2% of the total population of the United Federation of Planets.
Purely as a matter of interest, the Borg planet of Arehaz (AKA Borg Prime) had a combined population of over 50 Trillion in the same time period
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Sweet child of Satan, 50 Trillion!? I take back what I said about the Tkon. What did they do, hollow the planet out and make it an apartment block? Commented May 2, 2014 at 6:23
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@jamessheridan - and that's just one planet. Total population is over 100 trillion.– ValorumCommented May 2, 2014 at 8:32
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1@Richard - quite surprising. I would have thought that they wouldn't have such a substantial population concentrated in the one place. Perhaps this suggests the Borg have more things to do than assimilate species (perhaps processing assimilated knowledge takes a lot of resources?) Anyway this is sort of getting off topic Commented Jun 10, 2014 at 23:52
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2Assuming an Earth-sized surface area, this would correspond to a population density of about 100,000 drones per square kilometer. This is very dense, but today we do have individual city districts with a population density over 100,000/km^2 as shown in this article, though no real-life city has a total population density that high as shown here. Commented Nov 9, 2015 at 21:55
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2Also, it's not like Borg cities would need living rooms or parks or bathrooms or whatever, so you could really pack 'em in like they were on a Borg cube. Commented Nov 10, 2015 at 6:56