What is the most trodden-upon place on earth?

Readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts
  
  

Thousands of Hindus at the Kumbh Mela
Hindus at the Kumbh Mela at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers. Photograph: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images

Where, on earth, have more people been than any other place? Throughout all of human history, which piece of land has seen more footprints than anywhere else?

Mecca, probably, and paradoxically, since the non-Muslim majority of humankind is debarred from visiting. The religious duty of pilgrimage has enjoined Muslims to visit Mecca at least once in their life since the foundation of Islam and has become a major annual migration in the last 50 years. Roger Crosskey, London W10

I would say probably the sangam, or confluence, of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers at Prayag (Allahabad) in India. Not only is it the site of the Kumbh Mela, which millions attend, but it is visited every day by many thousands of religious pilgrims and people scattering cremation ashes. Pilgrims have been visiting it for thousands of years. fergie1

Your nearest jobcentre. Sergio Carvalho

Times Square, New York, which has 35 million-plus visitors every year. For decades it has been a very, very busy place. By comparison, Mecca gets around 9 million visitors a year. TomSwift


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The Shibuya crossing in Tokyo is said to have roughly a million people crossing it every day – that's nearly 365m a year. Tokyo is also the world's biggest city by most standards – it's population is roughly equal to London and New York's combined. tomkun

There are several places of which it is said that if you wait there long enough, everyone in the world will pass by – the likes of the Café de la Paix in Paris; the Via Veneto in Rome; and Piccadilly Circus in London. mollymooly

In front of the bar at the Glastonbury festival. williamsbach

The stairs at Surbiton station when the 18.59 from Clapham and the 19.05 from Waterloo arrive together. Sigh. ATG66

When did driving a lorry become "logistics"?

About the same time that personnel became "human resources", but before function became "functionality"and year after year became "year-on-year". roymittins

About the same time that estate agents and snake-oil salespeople became "consultants", and companies stopped offering services you think you might need and started offering "solutions" to problems you didn't know you had. You might think you just needed new windows, but no, someone has to come along and offer you (I have seen this, honestly) "progressive fenestration solutions". PatrickLondon

The use of "logistics" for delivery services is another example of the creep of military vocabulary into everyday life in the last 25 years, "strategy" being the most common example. Alexandria

What is the most critically acclaimed film that was a box-office disaster on release?

Citizen Kane, surely. It bombed at the box office, ruined Orson Welles, and was mostly forgotten until French cineastes revived interest in it 20 years later. Mirthin

Abel Gance's Napoléon – cinematographically the most revolutionary film ever made. A silent epic, it fell victim to the advent of sound when it was released in the same year (1927) as The Jazz Singer, and flopped. The film was butchered on release and lost for decades until it was lovingly restored over many years by Kevin Brownlow. StupidWestern


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No contest: Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter was poorly received at the box office, but was later deservedly acclaimed. Adèle Nicol, Edinburgh

A bigger list would be of films the critics loved, but which the people could not stand. ShuffleCarrot

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