biggest crowd ever?

so i just got back from SC, where i was avoiding the predicted madness that was the inauguration of barack obama. i've been trying to find an official crowd estimate and i can't and here's the reason why: louis farrakhan, leader of the nation of islam, threatend to sue the national park service (the agency charged with running the national mall) over their estimate of 400,000 people at his 1995
"million man march". obviously for an event being billed as a million man march to have only 400,000 people, looks a bit silly. ever since then, depending on what story you believe, the national park service has either been barred from or had their budget cut for doing crowd estimates.

at any rate, the estimates i have seen for the inauguration range from about 800,000 to about 2,000,000 which is a pretty big range if you ask me. here's the satellite imagery. if you're having a slow day at work, maybe you can count for yourself after you've zoomed way in.

Credit: GeoEye Satellite Image