Find the year with the most number of people alive in Python

>>> from collections import Counter
>>> from itertools import chain
>>> def most_pop(pop):
...     pop_flat = chain.from_iterable(range(i,j+1) for i,j in pop)
...     return Counter(pop_flat).most_common()
...
>>> most_pop([(1920, 1939), (1911, 1944), (1920, 1955), (1938, 1939)])[0]

Another solution I just though of:

• Create 2 tables, birthdates and deathdates.
• Accumulate birth dates and death dates in those tables.
• Browse those tables to accumulate the number of alive people at the time.

Grand total complexity is O(n)

Implementation

from collections import Counter

def most_populated(population, single=True):
    birth = map(lambda x: x[0], population)
    death = map(lambda x: x[1] + 1, population)
    b = Counter(birth)
    d = Counter(death)
    alive = 0
    years = {}
    for year in range(min(birth), max(death) + 1):
        alive = alive + b[year] - d[year]
        years[year] = alive
    return max(years, key=years.get) if single else \
           [key for key, val in years.iteritems() if val == max(years.values())]

Better

from collections import Counter
from itertools import accumulate
import operator

def most_populated(population, single=True):
    delta = Counter(x[0] for x in population)
    delta.subtract(Counter(x[1]+1 for x in population))
    start, end = min(delta.keys()), max(delta.keys())
    years = list(accumulate(delta[year] for year in range(start, end)))
    return max(enumerate(years), key=operator.itemgetter(1))[0] + start if single else \
           [i + start for i, val in enumerate(years) if val == max(years)]