How many square miles of the Earths surface is land in proportion to water?
Planet Earth has a total surface area of close to 197 million square miles. Most of this surface is covered by water. Most of this water is salty or in the form of ice and thus is not directly usable by humans. About 97% of the total water on earth is in the oceans or salt lakes. Another 2% of the total amount is locked up in the form of ice. It is estimated that at any given time only about 1/3 of 1% of the total water on earth can be used by humans for agriculture or human consumption. Oceans cover close to 140 million square miles, or about 71% of the earth’s surface. Over 1/5 of the land on the continents, somewhere between 11 and 12 million square miles, is also covered by water. Most of this water is in the form of ice. The 5.1 million square miles of Antarctica, the northern regions of North America, Europe and Asia, and the highest mountains all around the globe, are all under ice. The ice cover is quite thick in some places. Parts of Antarctica are covered by masses of ice who
