Does anyone know when the last time the FAA updated the populated areas (the yellow blob around cities) on their charts. They seemed to add the freeway here in the Phx area when it was finished almost immediately but the yellow on the chart to show where the city is seems way off. Below I drew in where at least the city it currently and you can see where it is listed:



One thing that came to my mind while writing is: those areas are mostly housing developments and maybe don't have a dense enough population to be considered a "populated area".

another idea hit me if the FAA does not list that area as a "populated area" can you fly an ultralight (with a transponder and radio of corse) over these unpopulated area even though there are houses there?

If somebody turns you in for low flying the FAA will define four houses in a cluster as a populated area.

Bonanza Man wrote:If somebody turns you in for low flying the FAA will define four houses in a cluster as a populated area.

Bingo.

Remember when we discussed the guy that took a passenger up in his biplane, hit wires and crashed. He was flying low-level, following a river that was 100 yards wide and the FAA said it was a populated area.

My understanding was that the yellow areas on a VFR sectional chart are lighted areas whose shape can be recognized at night. As far as i know they don't necessarily signify populated areas, although one should assume that an area of dense lights should be considered "populated."

That was the explanation of the yellow areas I was given as a student pilot: city lights visible at night.
"Populated areas" is not relevant- read FAR 91.119 "minimum safe altitudes: general". "Over congested areas", "Over other than congested areas" and " over water or sparsely populated areas" are the relevant descriptions. Pretty vague, eh? My sparsely populated area might be another man's congested area- esp if the FAA wants to be hardnosed pursuing a complaint.

Eric