2009 Obama inauguration Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images 2017 Trump inauguration 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee

An analysis of news footage appears to indicate that fewer people attended President Trump’s inauguration than President Obama’s in 2009. The footage on this page was captured 45 minutes before each oath of office. Attendees were still entering the National Mall up until Mr. Trump’s speech.

The analysis by Keith Still, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, estimates that the crowd on the National Mall on Friday was about one-third the size of Mr. Obama’s.

Professor Still was a crowd safety consultant for the 2011 royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and has advised the Saudi government on crowds for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

The initial analysis was limited in scope because footage of a larger area was not yet available. The number of people on the National Mall is typically a fraction of the total crowd that gathers for a presidential inauguration. In 2009, for example, about 460,000 of the estimated 1.8 million people who attended President Obama’s inauguration were on the National Mall.

The cloudy skies above this year’s inauguration means that there will likely be no clear satellite imagery of Washington. Without satellite imagery it is difficult to make a complete and accurate estimate of crowd size.

2009 Obama inauguration ABC News Footage 2017 Trump inauguration 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee

The maps below show areas of high crowd density in the available imagery.

2009 Washington Monument Capitol 2009 Capitol