I don't think the world is really running outof land. Having travelled vast amounts of the globe from north America, Horn of Africa to The Middle East, and SE Asia, I have seen much underutilized and empty land.

For example a 60 km drive east of Manila Philippines which has 11 million population will take you to area that has a very low population density and stays that way all the way to the east coast of Luzon Island. There is the American West, Patagonia, Northern Canada, Siberia, Eastern Russia, Alaska, Horn of Africa, Australian outback, and Antartica that all contain vast empty lands suitable for settling if the right tech was developed to make it feasible or a infrastructure was in place for transportation. Phoenix Arizona is a prime example of empty useless desert land being repurposed into usable purpose.

@Metz
I agree with Mark, there are many areas that are not suited to more than a very low population density. And at least current level of technology can't change that. As long as energy is scarce and expensive, this situation won't change, and even with abundant energy, not all problems are solved.

Speaking about agricultural land, IMO that there isn't really much unused good farmland in the world. Most of the areas You have mentioned are to cold or to dry to make a living of farming.
Since the beginning of civilization people have been in search of the best farmland, so I don't think there is much prime farmland still available.

I've never been in the philippines, but if the region east of Manila is sparsely populated, there prob are good reasons for it: to warm, to dry, to wet, to steep, to infertile. If there are thousands of hectares of quality land available for free or a minimum rate, give me details to start a farm operation there....

Mike

Well land in the Philippines can not be owned by anyone other than a Filipino citizen.  A good resource for Phils property availability would be sulit.com.ph.

But asides from that I think that the present agricultural practices need to be updated.  If the guys in Colorado can do a million pounds of food a year on 3 acres via aquaponics then it can be applied in even more conventional inhospitable climates.

For example I spent some time living and working in Djibouti, which is a tiny country on the Horn of Africa.  The arable land in the entire country is measured in less than a couple thousand US acres.  However with aquaponics the locals could raise most of their own food instead of importing it from europe and Ethiopia.

That said, the citizens of Djibouti prob would not do aquaponics because of the plentiful American food aid and the chronic drug problem that makes most of the population spend their afternoons stoned.