Transcript 02 Population Density and Distribution PPT

Demography
STUDY OF POPULATION IN GENERAL
PERSPECTIVE; HOW POPULATION IS
INFLUENCED BY FEATURES ACROSS
SPACE
Population Density
 Total population relative to land size
 Assumes an even distribution
Arithmetic Population Density
 A country’s pop. Dens. Of people per square m/km
 This can mask a countries physical space/physical features
Arable Land
 Land that is farmable
Physiologic Pop. Dens.
 The # of people per unit area of agriculturally
productive land

The difference between a countries Arithmetic Pop. Dens. And
it’s PPD gives you an idea of a countries Arable Land
Distribution
 There are 7,440,000,000 people on the planet,
China and India account for 40% of this.
 Arrangement of people on Earth’s surface
Dot Maps
 Historically people have lived where it is easiest to
grow food
 This leads to a rise in cities
 Which leads to a rise in agricultural and
transportation technologies
Four major regions of Population
distribution
 East Asia: about 1/3 of the worlds population
 China is the largest and people tend to be distributed along coasts
and rivers
 South Asia
 India is the largest and distributed similar to China
By 2030 1 in six humans will be from India
 Tremendous strain on farmland: about 156,000,000 in an area the size
of Iowa (3,110,000)

 Europe
 Less than ½ of East Asia
 Many E’s live in non-arable land. Why?
 About 80% of E’s live in cities
 North America
 Most dense on the North East coast
N.A.
 Megalopolis
 When several large cities conglomerate into one large urban
area

Washington D.C. to Boston
Problems with collecting Pop. Data
 Census: when a country tries to count its pop.
 This is very difficult to do
 Late
18th
Thomas Malthus
century
 Believed food production was confined spatially; what
a country can eat depends on what they can grow
 Countries are not a closed system
 Ignores the rise of Globalization
 Allows countries who don’t have enough arable land to continue
to grow
 Also does not take into account technological innovations
Population growth Scales
 Regional and National
 Natural Increase: Birth Rate – Death Rate (What does this not
include?)
 Old-age Dependency Ratio: # of people over 65 and # of working
age pop. (15-64)
 Child Dependency Ratio: Pop. 0-14 and WA (15-64)
 Country: Pop. Data counted based on formal regions
 Doubling Time: time to double pop. At current growth rate
 Zero Pop. Growth: BR and DR are almost 1 to 1