This is not actually that true. Germany is 7x as dense as the US, but Germany is only 5.9x as dense as the contiguous US.<p>About a third of the contiguous US has almost no people relative to the rest except for a few population centers (Intermountain West and Great Plains).  There are several states with population densities higher than Germany, and quite a few within a factor of three, and naturally those will tend to have more people than the others.<p>So I&#x27;m not sure the median surrounding population density for an individual in the US would be that much different from Germany -- I&#x27;d think cultural factors, including public transportation availability, would have at least as much an effect on average distances driven.