If land parcel is seen in the way how cadasters and land registeries define them, these relate to both rural and urban land. As the World's population is more and more urban, the answer will also be influenced by the way how the urban population relates to land and the way how land parcels are defined. If the population lives in large families in apartment buildings or informal housing (without formal parcellation of land) the ratio between urban population and land parcels is very different from an urban population living in small households in houses on seperate plots. Also in rural areas, larger consolidated farms may own several parcels, which may relect so more past agricultural traditions than current practices.

Willem's insightful answer above reminded me of the research of Dr Rehnuma Parveen (University of Adelaide) about energy independent residential development in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the course of her PhD research, Dr Parveen studied plot size, shape and dimensions for several districts in Dhaka. She wrote that "due to the high demand for serviced plots and the acute land scarcity, a higher number of smaller plots is being provided in the newer developments" (thesis, p. 125). This led to massive tall buildings located 'cheek by jowl', located only about 2.5m apart. These 'canyons' impacted greatly on the living conditions, with little open space, poor air circulation, hot microclimate etc. To me, the creation of small, separate land parcels was at the core of this over-development problem.