Egyptian protest leaders and media have exaggerated the size of the Jan. 31 protests against the Mubarak regime in Cairo's Tahrir Square, claiming that 250,000 people were present. Estimates of protest sizes are often wildly off-base, for several reasons: Witnesses in the midst of protests do not have the perspective to judge the size, and protest organizers often to emphasize their movement's significance in any way possible, and therefore offer reporters inflated figures. More scientific approaches to measuring the size of the crowds in Tahrir Square reveal it is almost physically impossible to fit 250,000 people in the square (let alone 1 million, as they have promised to do Feb. 1) when its surface area is compared to surface areas of other known areas of quantified crowd density, such as the National Mall in Washington. This graphic depicts the relative size of Tahrir Square and how much space is needed to fit the crowds that organizers claim they have attracted and will be able to attract.
