Once lockdown is lifted, flights resume, and people feel ready to start exploring the world again, we’d wager that many will be longing for somewhere remote, unspoilt and uncrowded.

So the world’s least densely populated places would be a good place to start. Here they are, with inspiring quotes and travel suggestions from those who have been.

10= Suriname

9.1 people per square mile

Suriname, squeezed between French Guiana, Guyana and Brazil, was given to the Dutch by Britain in 1667 in exchange for none other than New Amsterdam (modern day New York) during the signing of the Treaty of Breda. Dutch remains the official language, and although the country is mostly rainforest – there are no natural harbours and few railways or roads – its capital, Paramaribo, is home to the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, which would not look out of place in a European city. John Gimlette, who visited back in 2011, said: “If I were to design the perfect city, it would be like Paramaribo. All the buildings would be white, and it would have a river running through it. There'd be plantations and fruit trees, and little canals would ripple through the centre. There'd be no business district or overbearing banks, and nothing would be taller than a church. At the heart of it all would be a little purple fortress, like a hat full of mansions.”

Cute critters in Suriname Credit: getty

A more recent visitor was Emma Thomson, who wrote of her arrival: “At Atjoni, in Suriname, the road ran out. We bundled into a shallow wooden canoe alongside watermelons and gas canisters, babies and bananas, and motored away from the music blaring from a Chinese-owned supermarket posted on the riverbank. For two-and-a-half hours we followed the Suriname River, navigating her frothy rapids and passing villages where uniformed school kids sat outside singing and bare-breasted women washed their laundry in the muddy waters, until we reached Danpaati River Lodge. The entrance was fringed with trailing maripa-palm leaves – ‘to keep out evil spirits,’ explained lodge manager, Noach, noticing my interest. Our fellow island guests were golden-handed tamarin, squirrel monkeys and, in the distance, a bird whose echoing ‘plop’ of a call sounded like a coin being dropped into water.”

10= Iceland

9.1 people per square mile

Tied with Suriname in tenth place is a country many Britons will be more familiar with. Iceland has a population of around 365,000, with most living in the cool capital Reykjavík. Elsewhere on the island there are glacier walks, descents into volcanoes, and black-sand beaches. For Game of Thrones fans, it’s a must.

Alexis Averbuck, in his guide to the perfect two-week holiday there, says: “Iceland is magnificent. This low-key island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean will not fail to impress. From craggy volcanoes, to cliffs festooned with thundering waterfalls and glaciers creeping down to black-sand beaches, the landscape feels like the ends of the earth, even though it’s only a short flight from Europe or North America. Pair that with cordial, interesting, creative and efficient Icelanders, and you’ve got an amazing trip beckoning.”

9. Australia

9 people per square mile

Vast Australia offers endless space - it’s even home to the longest straight road in the world, the 90-mile Eyre Highway. Some of its wildest places are in the west, and Britons can now fly to regional capital Perth without stopping.

In her guide to Western Australia, Fleur Bainger writes: “The Wild West has undeniable allure – I know, because its charms snared me: I moved here for six weeks and never left. That was 12 years ago. The capital is one of the most isolated in the world, its coastline long, untouched and bloated with marine life, and its people upbeat and outdoorsy – perhaps buoyed by the 3,000 hours of sunshine Perth soaks up a year.

Roos out outnumber people (maybe) Credit: getty

“There’s also the intrigue of Australia’s ‘other side’, one that’s off the well-beaten tourist path and more in tune with the rugged wilderness of the outback. Oh, and then there’s those impossibly cute, furry marsupials called quokkas that have been taking over the internet. And the massive, gentle whale sharks that are quite relaxed about you joining them for a swim.

“What visitors often don’t know is that behind the Caribbean-like beaches are forests that stretch 200ft towards the sky, characterful portside towns with winding streets and elegant wineries responsible for 20 per cent of the country’s premium output. Western Australia isn’t just beaches, you see.”

8. Namibia

7.5 people per square mile

Pippa de Bruyn, in her guide to the perfect holiday there, writes: “I felt my atheism wither and wilt in the heat of the Namib-Naukluft as we chugged through it in a battered old VW Beetle in 1990. The driver, a friend in recovery, stopped periodically to gaze at the abstract artwork shimmering around us and we’d sit, bathed in hot air, for the most part speechless.

Dunes in Namibia Credit: Getty

“Apparently stripped of life, this was a purely mineral world, with textures and colours that suggested a considered aesthete at work: lime green dusted pale yellow plains; burnt orange and sienna dunes offset against deep purple mountains; twists of molten black rock intensifying the blue backdrop.

“I knew this was the world’s oldest desert – dating back 55 million years – but I hadn’t expected such a visceral experience: the history of mankind but a few grains in this vast ocean of sand.

“Three decades later, Namibia is still my favourite place on earth. What other destination offers such raw beauty, such a variety of landscapes, and the luxury of experiencing much of it alone.”

7. French Guiana

7.3 people per square mile

Suriname’s neighbour offers a similar dose of untouched jungle wilderness. Emma Thomson explains: “The region is underpinned by the Guiana Shield, a tectonic bedrock that gave rise to the epic Angel and Kaieteur Falls and one of the highest regions of biodiversity in the world. Here, trees outnumber people by 1,000 to one. And within those forests thrives an ark of Jungle Book characters. From deer-eating anaconda, jaguar and giant otter, to savannahs roamed by knuckle-walking anteaters and rivers home to the knife fish that can unleash 860 volts and the three-metre-long arapaima, said to be the soul of a cursed warrior with scales hard enough to be used as nail files.

“And when you’re living cheek by jowl with claws and creepy crawlies, those expanses of unaltered nature, that have never known mankind, hold magic. In traditional villages posted along its myriad waterways, I was to learn of Kanaima, trees that walk and other plant alchemy.” Read the full story.

Head to the rainforests of Guianas for solitude Credit: getty

6. Western Sahara

6 people per square mile

Uncrowded and disputed, Western Sahara is hardly on the radar of many travellers, and the Foreign Office advises against all travel to its south-eastern half.

The Telegraph has never sent a reporter there, but Lonely Planet writes: “The region's recent Spanish past echoes languidly in cafes and restaurants, while one of the world's best kiteboarding scenes attracts international visitors seeking a more energetic Western Saharan experience.

“Occasional roadblocks on the fringes of the desert reinforce this is a disputed region, despite what is indicated by the Moroccan flags shifting in tropical breezes.

“Against this subdued background of international contention, a small group of pioneering expats are developing eco-aware and low-impact tours exploring the lagoon and surrounding desert.”

5. Mongolia

4.9 people per square mile

The world’s least crowded sovereign state, Mongolia has a population density of 4.9 people per square mile (for the UK, the figure is 710).

Terry Richardson, who visited in 2017, wrote: “The nickname ‘Big Sky Country’ is a fitting one for ruggedly beautiful Montana, the fourth largest US state. If the same sobriquet were applied to Mongolia, however, it would simply be inadequate. For this enormous landlocked country of green steppe, vast flat plains, intricately braided rivers, electric-blue highland lakes, snow-licked mountains, dense pine forests and shifting desert is presided over by a skyscape of such bold blue immensity it beggars description.”

A typical scene in Mongolia Credit: Getty

4. Pitcairn Islands

3.1 people per square mile

Despite its small size (18 square miles), Pitcairn, with only 56 residents, still qualifies as one of the world’s most sparsely populated places. It’s also among the most remote islands on the planet - so don’t go unless you enjoy your own company.

Mark Stratton explains: “This tiny Polynesian outpost has no airport and, when I visited, required a 2.5-day voyage by freighter from the obscure Gambier Islands to where Fletcher Christian’s Bounty mutineers settled back in 1789. My own sense of vulnerability came from wondering how Pitkerners’ might receive a member of the British media after unflattering coverage of the island’s recent past? But they were courteous and welcoming.”

A rare visitor to Pitcairn Credit: getty

Currently, Pitcairn is free of Covid-19. Bearing the resilience of mutinous ancestors who actively sought isolation to avoid swinging from a yardarm, Pitkerners’ normally supplement their income via a trickle of tourists arriving on an irregular freighter, Silver Supporter, and sell handmade souvenirs to passing cruise ships. To protect against Covid-19 impacting on a diminutive population of 45, neither tourists or visiting ships’ crew may set foot ashore, nor may the islanders’ board visiting ships.

“For much of Pitcairn’s history there was no regular shipping service and contact with the outside world was entirely ad-hoc with passing vessels,” says Nick Kennedy, the island administrator. “We’re seeing the situation in that context. Nobody has spoken of an increased sense of isolation”.

3. Falkland Islands

0.54 people per square mile

Marcel Theroux, after visiting this British Oversea Territory in 2019, wrote: “Last year, when a friend returned from the Falkland Islands after visiting on an Antarctica cruise, she raved about the landscapes and the wildlife. Not long afterwards the archipelago cropped up in a list of up-and-coming destinations for 2019, alongside Danang in Vietnam and Puglia in Italy. The more I read about the islands, the more I realised how little I knew about them – and the more I wanted to go.

The Falklands: penguins not people Credit: iStock

“When I finally got there, I was awed by their remoteness and strange beauty. They are bigger, prettier, sunnier, more interesting, more unspoilt and more dramatic than I had imagined. Though collectively half the size of Wales, they have just 3,200 permanent residents – and it was this human element that I found most fascinating. Eight thousand miles from home, I was struck by distant echoes of British culture: in particular, the islanders displayed the same gentle spirit of self-reliance as my sheep farmer in-laws.”

2. Svalbard and Jan Mayen

0.1 people per square mile

Frozen Svalbard attracts a smattering of tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of its polar bears. Stanley Stewart made the journey in 2019. He wrote: “In Svalbard anyone can become a citizen. Get an address at Longyearbyen, prove you’ve the funds to support yourself and you’re in. It’s that easy. What you’re not allowed to do is die. Something to do with tricky burials in permafrost and no cremations 650 miles from the North Pole.

“I mention this because Rasmus Jacobsen, the softly spoken owner-captain of our schooner, Linden, spent the first moments of my cruise enumerating the ways in which to come a cropper. You could go overboard (hypothermia within five minutes) or get brained by one of the ship’s spars (someone releasing the wrong brown rope). Easy to do when they’re all brown.

“If you were lucky the last thing you might see was one of Svalbard’s 3,000 polar bears – a hazard during trips ashore, expedition naturalist Mette Eliseussen warned. A bear cannot be outrun by a human. A serious confrontation usually ends in death for one party. Get on the wrong side of the world’s largest land carnivore and, well, Mette had a tough rifle-shot. We 10 passengers giggled. Mette scowled. She wasn’t joking.”

One of Svalbard's furry residents Credit: getty

1. Greenland

0.08 people per square mile

Emma Thomson, who visited in 2019, explains the unique appeal of this vast and empty world: “Locals call it Kalaalit Nunnat, meaning ‘Land of the People,’ which is ironic because for large swathes of time the world’s largest island was uninhabited. Covered by a vast ancient ice cap the size of Spain, its meager population – still only 56,565 – clings to the fringes eking out a living mainly fishing and hunting.

“Here, Nature rules with such an icy fist that a person’s age is measured in winters and legends of a fingerless sea goddess are still told huddled around hearths.” Read the full story.

Where to avoid?

The most densely populated places in the world? We’ve listed them below: