Abstract: Population is mainly distributed in the residential districts, and the residential districts characterized with artificial buildings is of the greatest threat to the lives and property affected by the earthquake disaster, so the spatial distribution simulation of population in the dwelling districts has a unique significance for earthquake disaster investigation. This paper extracts residential districts from TM images of the Shanghai region, and re-sampling with 1 km grid and then statistics of the living area of each grid is made; Rooted in distance attenuation function, a power exponential model based on the scale of district and the distance form the center of district. The Results show that the population density of rural areas of Shanghai less than 5000 persons/km², and more than 5000 persons/km² in towns; the population density of the central part of the city ranges from 1023 persons/km² to 49159 persons/km², showing non-homogeneous distribution state.

Key words: Population density, Grid, TM images, Images of residential districts, Shanghai region