POPULATION Study of population important because more people
POPULATION • Study of population important because more people live now than ever before-6. 5 billion • Population increasing faster rate 2 nd ½ of 20 th century than ever before in history • All global pop growth concentrated in LDC • Demography is scientific study of pop characteristics; demographers study this data • Population problems ask “where” and “why” • Overpopulation problem looks at the relationship between # of people and availability of resources
Where is the World’s Population Distributed? • Population Concentrations-2/3 live in East Asia, South Asia, SE Asia, & western Europe • Clustering is shown on cartograms; see figure 2 -1 • 4 regions have similarities: • people live near ocean or river • generally low-lying area with fertile soil & temperate climate • all located in Northern Hemisphere (10 -55 degrees north latitude) except for SE Asia
East Asia • 1/5 world’s people live in East Asia • 5/6 of people in this concentration live in People’s Republic of China • world’s most populous country; 3 rd largest land area-near Pacific coast & fertile river valleys-Huang & Yangtze • 26 urban areas with more than 2 million people, but 2/3 of people live in rural areas-farmers • Japan & South Korea pop not distributed evenly • 1/3 people live in 3 metropolitan areas-Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul • ¾ Japanese and Koreans live urban areas-industrial or service jobs rather than farmers unlike China
South Asia Southeast Asia • 1/5 world’s people live in South Asia-India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (island) • most people in India live along plains of Indus and Ganges rivers; also concentrated near 2 coastlines-Arabian Seawest & Bay of Bengal-east • most people live rural areas; farmers • 4 th largest pop cluster; ½ billion people live on series of islands between Indian & Pacific Oceans (includes Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Papua New Guinea, & Philippines • Java-100 million people • Indonesia (which includes Java) 4 th most populous country • most people-rural areasfarmers
Europe Other Pop Clusters • 1/9 of world’s people from Europe (including European portion of Russia) • ¾ inhabitants live in cities; less than 20% farmers • Dense network of road and rail links people • Region has temperate climate • Have to import food & resources • largest concentration in Western Hemisphere in northeastern U. S. • urban areas-less than 5% farmers • 2% of world’s population in West Africa; Nigeria most populous country • people work in agriculture
Sparsely Populated Regions • Ecumene refers to the portion of Earth’s surface occupied by permanent human settlement • ¾ of world’s population live on only 5% of Earth’s surface
Dry Lands • 20% of Earth’s land surface is too dry for farming • Northern Hemisphere. Sahara, Arabian, Thar, Takla Makan, Gobi • Southern Hemispheremost of Australia • lack sufficient water to feed a population • people are able to live and raise animals in desert (nomads) • Some desert areas contain natural resources i. e. oil reserves which leads to settlement in these areas
Wet Lands • Land that receives • Certain areas that too much rainfall do receive extra makes human rainfall i. e. occupation difficult Southeast Asia are (areas around able to produce equator) enough food to support their • Combination of rain population (rice) & heat rapidly depletes nutrients from soil (leaching)
Cold Lands High Lands • land near North • few people can live and South Poles is at high elevationsconstantly covered sparsely populated with ice or ground • Exceptions are is permanently higher elevations in frozen (permafrost) Latin America and • area unsuitable for Africa where people planting crops have settled • Mexico City-7, 360’
Population Density • Arithmetic Densitytotal # people divided by total land area (aka population density) • U. S. -78 per sq. mile, Bangladesh-2, 640 per square mile, Canada-7 per square mile, India 840 per square mile • Physiological Densitynumber of people supported by unit area of arable (farmable) land • Large difference in physiological density demonstrates how much more some countries arable land must yield to support their population
Agricultural Density • Term refers to the • Egypt on the other ratio of the number hand has a higher of farmers to the agricultural density amount of arable at 1, 401 farmers land per square km • For example, U. S. • Typically MDC have has a lower agricultural density because of at 4 farmers per technology and square km of finances arable land
Where Has the World’s Population Increased? • Geographers measure population change in a country of the world thru 3 measures: • Crude Birth Rate (CBR)-total # of live births in a year for every 1, 000 people • Crude Death Rate (CDR)-total # of deaths in a year for every 1, 000 people alive in that society • Natural Increase Rate (NIR)-% by which a population grows in a year. Subtract CBR from CDR (see page 53)
Natural Increase
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