population patterns and processes

Part Two

POPULATION PATTERNS AND PROCESSES

The world’s growing human population has passed the 6-billionmark, four times the number just one century ago. The rate ofoverall growth is declining, but the actual increase continues atabout 80 million per year. Reducing this annual increment is anobjective advocated vigorously by the wealthier, low-growth,Western countries. Improved living standards, they argue, canbe achieved only by controlling population growth. Somepoorer countries, notably China, have adopted policies designedto reduce their population growth rates. But a world populationconference held by the United Nations in 1994 revealed somedeep disagreements among the participants. Many Islamiccountries argued that population control of the kind advocated

Par t Out l ine

4 Fundamentals of Population: Location,Distribution, and Density

5 Processes and Cycles of Population Change

6 Where and Why People Move

7 Policy Responses to Demographic Changes

A t Issue

by Western nations violated Muslim precepts. (They foundsupport in the Vatican, also represented at the conference.)Other countries maintained that the high rate of consumption inthe rich Western countries constitutes a larger problem thanrapid population growth in poorer regions. In a lifetime, anAmerican will consume 30 times as much of the world’s foodand other resources as, say, a Bangladeshi does. So how seriousa problem is population growth? Should lowering the world’spopulation growth rate be a global objective at all?

A warning from the authorities in Chengdu, China.

Chapter 4Fundamentals ofPopulation: Location,Distribution, and Density

53

From the field notes

“No matter where you are, the Indonesian island

of Jawa (Java) leaves no doubt that this is one of

the most densely populated places on Earth. The

back roads I traveled seemed to be lined with

houses for endless miles, the houses clustering

into villages and towns every few minutes. Here

in Jakarta, the national capital, the crush of

people reminds you that this is the world’s

fourth-most populous country. During much of

the day, traffic is so congested that it crawls

along, so that pedestrians simply mix with road

vehicles. It is all a sign of a burgeoning economy,

but what happens when the economy falters? Will

food supply always suffice, as it does today?”

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Historical geographers of the future will undoubt-edly look back upon the twentieth century as thecentury of the human “population explosion.”

After tens of thousands of years (perhaps as long as90,000 years) of growth, the Earth’s human population atthe beginning of the twentieth century stood at about 1.5billion. By the end of that century, it exceeded 6 billion.During the 1960s and 1970s, the rate of populationgrowth increased so fast that disaster seemed to lie aheadin the form of mass famines and global social dislocation.Since then, technological advances have expanded foodproduction even faster than the population has grown,and the global population’s growth rate has begun toslow. But, as we will see, the problems resulting from the

population explosion still prevail. Hundreds of millionsof people, mostly children, remain malnourished. Manycountries, mostly in the poorer parts of the world, con-tinue to have population increases with which they can-not cope.

The study of population is termed demography(from the ancient Greek words demos, meaning popu-lace or people, and graphe, meaning to describe). Thefocus of the field of population geography is on thespatial aspects of demography. Demographic problemsand issues vary not only from region to region and coun-try to country, but also within countries. Our spatial in-quiry leads to some penetrating insights into demo-graphic predicaments. ◆

KEY POINTS

◆ The world’s population is currently grow-ing by about 80 million per year; the bulk ofthis growth is occurring in the world’spoorer countries.

◆ The distribution of population describesthe locations on the Earth’s surface whereindividuals or groups live. By contrast,population density is a measure of the num-ber of people per unit area.

◆ At a global scale, there continues to be aremarkably strong correlation betweenareas of high population density and areaswith significant expanses of arable land.

◆ Population data often are unreliable be-cause of the high cost and organizationalchallenges of census taking.

◆ The world’s three largest population con-centrations all lie on the Eurasian land-mass, and the smallest of the three is themost highly developed and urbanized.

◆ By itself, population density tells us littleabout the capacity of individual countries tosupport their inhabitants. This is becausedensity does not take into account globaleconomic position or access to technology.

54

◆ KEY ISSUES IN POPULATIONGEOGRAPHY

In Part Two we address several fundamental issues inpopulation geography, and others arise later in thisbook. First, we should acquaint ourselves with the pre-sent distribution of population at several levels of scale.We may know the total current population of a country,but where in that country are the people concentrated?Figure 4-1 reveals that about 90 percent of the people inthe world’s most populous country, China, live in theeasternmost one-third of its territory—creating vast inte-rior frontiers of sparsely peopled, minority-inhabitedborderland. The map suggests why China’s leaders have

encouraged Han Chinese to move westward. Historicfactors created the present distribution of population,but modern times often demand change.

Problems associated with population growth re-main paramount in population geography. The Earth’senvironments and natural resources are strained by theneeds of the mushrooming population, which farms anderodes its soils, fishes and depletes its oceans, minesand consumes its minerals and fuels, and cuts and de-stroys its forests. But, as we will see, historically popula-tion growth has not been a linear process. Regionalpopulations have grown and declined as a result of epi-demics and famines; only after the onset of the Indus-trial Revolution has growth been the dominant trend.

Today, however, the populations of certain countriesare again declining, not for reasons of health or food,but through other causes. Some scholars suggest thatpopulation shrinkage, which has its own set of associ-ated problems, will become a major issue during thepresent century. They argue that population change,not only population growth, will challenge the world ofthe twenty-first century.

Another issue we address is migration. Waves ofhuman migration have changed—and continue to mod-ify—the demographic map of the world. The movementof millions of people across international borders, mostlyin search of jobs and a better life but sometimes to es-cape war or natural disaster, continues. Indeed, immigra-tion into certain countries adds more to the total popula-tion than natural population increase in those countries;governments try to stem the tide of migrants by closingborders or refusing domicile to those who do manage toenter. Related to the process of migration is the disloca-tion of millions of people who become refugees, a topicwe examine in some detail.

Virtually all governments have population policiesthat promote national objectives, ranging from controlover immigration to internal relocation. These policy re-sponses to demographic changes often have ethnic aswell as spatial overtones, favoring a particular (usuallydominant) sector of the national population or promot-ing a country’s heartland, its core area, and its inhabi-tants over outlying areas. Other policies target growthrates and involve mass sterilization or support for familyplanning. As we will see, such policies sometimes haveunintended consequences.

Later in this book we examine other issues relatingto population geography, including food supply and the

possibility that world population growth will again over-take total production; health and well-being, about asunevenly distributed across the globe as any social con-dition; and the status of women, often hidden by statis-tics that report averages for entire populations withoutrevealing sharp contrasts between males and females interms of education, income, nourishment, infant andchild mortality, freedom of movement, and many otherindices.

◆ ELEMENTS OF POPULATIONGEOGRAPHY

How can a geographic approach to issues such as thosejust described improve our understanding of them? Tobegin with, we should consider some of the spatial as-pects of the human world. Not only does less than 30percent of the Earth’s surface consist of solid ground, butof that living space, only a fraction (at most, around one-third) is arable—that is, able to produce crops and live-stock. Vast stretches of land are desert, frigid, mountain-ous, or otherwise agriculturally unproductive, or of suchlow productivity that only very small human populationscan subsist there.

Population and SpaceFrom the very beginning, humanity has been unevenlydistributed over the land, and the contrasts betweencrowded countrysides and bustling cities on the onehand and empty reaches on the other have only intensi-fied—especially during the twentieth century. Evencountries with huge populations, such as China andIndia, have large areas where people are absent or

CHAPTER 4 Fundamentals of Population: Location, Distribution, and Density 55

Reliability of Population DataWhen the United States conducted its 1990 population cen-sus and the results began to be published, there was an up-roar from several quarters. Mayors of major cities insisted thatthe census had undercounted their populations. This wouldput them at a financial disadvantage during coming years be-cause federal aid is based on population data. Governorscomplained that undependable population data could affectthe number of congressional seats allotted to their seats. In-dependent observers found that the census had been carriedout well but that as many as 2 million people may not havebeen counted.

If a prosperous country such as the United States hasproblems conducting an accurate census, imagine the diffi-culties that must be overcome in less well-off countries. Thecost, organization, and reporting of a census go beyond whatmany countries can afford or handle.

World population data are collected by several agencies.The United Nations records official statistics that have beenassembled and reported by national governments. The U.S.Census Bureau also gathers global population data. TheWorld Bank and the Population Reference Bureau are amongother organizations that conduct research and report on thepopulation of the world and of individual countries.

The population data published by these and other orga-nizations frequently are inconsistent. If you examine variousstatistical tables in detail, inconsistencies will inevitablyemerge. Growth rates and other vital statistics, data on foodavailability, health conditions, and incomes are at times in-formed estimates rather than hard facts. Thus, while the fig-ures used in this book are based on careful assessments, theyare still subject to error.

sparsely distributed. The peoples of China and India stilldepend quite heavily on the food their farmers can pro-duce, so the clustering of the population in those coun-tries continues to reflect the availability and fertility of farmland. China’s interior deserts, cold, windsweptplateaus, and snowcapped mountains remain as emptyas they have always been, except for small settlements inareas where minerals or fuels are mined.

In countries with more technologically advancedeconomies, people tend to leave the land and to clusterin cities and towns. Mushrooming urbanization, in whichrural, farm-based societies are transformed into urban,trade-based ones, is a dominant theme of contemporaryhuman geography. To be sure, cities are also growing insuch countries as India and China, but the percentage ofthose countries’ population that is urbanized remains far

below that of, say, the United States or Western Europe.(For comparisons among these and other countries, con-sult Resource B, page R-10, where demographic data forall the world’s principal countries are provided.)

Population Distribution and DensityTo represent contrasts of the kind just discussed onmaps, population geographers use measures of popula-tion distribution and density.

The distribution of population describes the loca-tions on the Earth’s surface where individuals or groups(depending on the scale) live. It is represented most effi-ciently by a so-called dot map. At the largest scale—forexample, part of a rural county in the United States—such a map can actually show the location of every indi-

Part Two Population Patterns and Processes56

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vidual, with each dot representing one person. At amedium scale—say an entire country such as France—one dot would represent a cluster of perhaps 5000 peo-ple, and the map would reveal where the population isconcentrated and where the number of people in anarea would not add up to 5000. At the smallest scale, aworld map of population density would use a singledot to represent as many as 100,000 people.

Maps of population distribution have many uses.Famine-relief campaigns, for example, use them in theirefforts to deliver supplies to remote areas more effi-ciently. Closer to home, electoral redistricting maps can-not be drawn without data on where voters live. Forsuch purposes, too, distribution maps are needed.

Population density is another matter. Here the mea-sure is of the number of people per unit area, such as a

square kilometer or square mile. The data in Resource B(page R-10) provide the area, total population, and den-sity per square mile for every country (but see the box,“Reliability of Population Data”).

Note, however, that no country has an evenly dis-tributed population, so that the average derived by di-viding the national area by the total number of peoplemay not have much practical meaning. The UnitedStates, for example, with a territory of 3,717,425 squaremiles or 9,629,167 square kilometers (including thesurfaces of lakes and ponds and coastal waters up tothree nautical miles from shore) had a population of285.4 million in 2002. This yields an average popula-tion density for the United States of just under 77 persquare mile (29.6 per square kilometer). This figure isthe country’s arithmetic population density, and in


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a very general way it emphasizes the contrasts betweenthe United States and such nations as Bangladesh (2644per square mile), the Netherlands (1224), and Japan(875).

But no country has an evenly distributed popula-tion, and arithmetic population figures do not reflect theemptiness of most of Alaska and the sparseness of popu-lation in much of the West. In other cases it is actuallyquite misleading. Take the example of Egypt which, witha population of 71.1 million in 2002, has a seeminglymoderate arithmetic population density of 185 persquare mile. Egypt’s territory of 284,300 square miles,however, is mostly desert, and the vast majority of thepopulation is crowded into the valley and delta of theNile River. It is estimated that 98 percent of all Egyptianslive on just 3 percent of the country’s land, so the arith-metic population density figure is pretty well meaning-less here.

Physiologic Population DensityA superior index of population density relates the totalpopulation of a country or region to the area of culti-vated land it contains. This is called the physiologicpopulation density, defined as the number of peopleper unit area of agriculturally productive land. Takeagain the case of Egypt. Although millions of people livein its great cities (Cairo and Alexandria) and smallerurban centers, the irrigated farmland is densely peopled

as well. When the entire population is divided in Egypt’sconfined arable (farmable) land, the resulting physio-logic density figure for the year 2002 is 9245 per squaremile. This number is far more reflective of Egypt’s popu-lation pressure, and it continues to rise rapidly despiteEgypt’s efforts to expand its irrigated farmlands.

The case of Japan is also instructive. Not only doesJapan have a high arithmetic population density (morethan 11 times as high as that of the United States), butJapan is a mountainous, high-relief country with limitedarable land. Japan’s physiologic population density is7950, which is almost 20 times as high as the UnitedStates. Neither Egypt nor Japan could manage withoutfood imports.

Table 4-1 provides complete data on both arith-metic and physiologic population densities, and someof the data stand out markedly. Mountainous Switzer-land’s high physiologic density should be expected: it is10 times as high as its arithmetic density. But noteUkraine, with its vast farmlands: its physiologic densityis only 1.7 times as high as its arithmetic density. Alsocompare the high physiologic densities in Middle Amer-ica (see Puerto Rico!) to the moderate data for SouthAmerica, where Argentina has one of the lowest indicesin the world. Furthermore, note that India’s physiologicdensity is the lowest in South Asia despite its huge pop-ulation (and is less than twice as high as its arithmeticdensity), whereas China’s physiologic density in 2002was almost 10 times higher.


Table 4-1 Population Densities for Selected Countries, 2001

2001Population Area Arithmetic Density Physiologic Density

Country in millions thousands sq mi/km sq mi/km sq mi/km % Arable Land

Argentina 37.5 1056.6 mi–2736.6 km 35/mi 15/km 394/mi 152/km 9Bangladesh 133.5 51.7 mi–133.9 km 2582/mi 997/km 3541/mi 1362/km 73China 1273.3 3600.9 mi–9326.4 km 354/mi 137/km 3521/mi 1365/km 10Colombia 43.1 401 mi–1038.7 km 107/mi 41/km 2694/mi 1036/km 4Egypt 69.8 384.3 mi–995.4 km 182/mi 70/km 9064/mi 3508/km 2India 1033 1147.9 mi–2973.1 km 900/mi 347/km 1607/mi 620/km 56Japan 127.1 144.6 mi–374.7 km 879/mi 339/km 7944/mi 3085/km 11Netherlands 16 13.1 mi–33.9 km 1221/mi 472/km 4849/mi 1882/km 25Nigeria 126.6 351.7 mi–910.8 km 360/mi 139/km 1090/mi 421/km 33Puerto Rico 3.9 3.5 mi–9.0 km 1114/mi 433/km 3900/mi 975/km 4Switzerland 7.2 15.4 mi–40.0 km 468/mi 180/km 4800/mi 1800/km 10Ukraine 49.1 233.0 mi–603.7 km 211/mi 81/km 363/mi 140/km 58United States 284.5 3536.3 mi–9159.0 km 80/mi 31/km 423/mi 163/km 19

Sources: Calculated from World Population Datasheet, 2001, published by the Population Reference Bureau, Inc., and from the World Fact-book, 2001, published by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency.

Note that the population data in this table may not correspond precisely to statistics from other sources. (See box, “Reliability of PopulationData.”)

◆ MAJOR POPULATIONCONCENTRATIONS

Figures 4-1 and 4-2 show patterns of distribution anddensity in the world population. Figure 4-1 displaysdistribution using the dot method, whereas Figure 4-2illustrates density via the isopleth method. Both mapsconfirm that the world’s three largest population con-centrations are all found on the same landmass: Eura-sia. They also remind us that the overwhelming ma-jority of the world’s population inhabits the NorthernHemisphere.

The three Eurasian concentrations are in East Asia,South Asia, and Europe. Each is associated with a majorcivilization: China, India, and Western Europe. Thefourth-ranking concentration, North America, is centeredin the United States and represents still another impor-tant civilization. In this section we explore some of thesignificant differences among these leading populationclusters.

East AsiaAlthough the distribution map (Fig. 4-1) requires nocolor contrasts, Figure 4-2 depicts population densitythrough shading: the darker the color, the larger thenumber of people per unit area. The most extensive areaof dark shading lies in East Asia, primarily in China butalso in Korea and Japan. About one-quarter of theworld’s population is concentrated here—nearly 1.3 bil-lion people in China alone.

The East Asian population cluster adjoins the PacificOcean from Korea to Vietnam; the number of people perunit area tends to decline from this coastal zone towardthe interior. Also visible are several ribbon-like exten-sions of dense population (Fig. 4-2 A and B). These ex-tensions represent populations that are clustered in thebasins and lowlands of China’s major rivers. This servesto remind us that the great majority of people in East Asiaare farmers, not city dwellers. True, China has large cities,such as Shanghai and Beijing. However, the total popula-tion of these and other cities is far outnumbered by thefarmers, who produce crops of wheat and rice to feed notonly themselves but also those in the cities and towns.


From the field notes

“This dirt road along the shore of Bombay Harborprovided some useful insights into Mumbai’s diversity, and Ifollowed it as far as I could. The apartment buildings in thebackground house the fortunate in this teeming city, butmake no mistake: the dwellings in the left foreground, withtheir jute (burlap) covers and palm-frond roofs, are superiorto those of millions living in this city’s outskirt shantytowns.Fishermen and their families live here (the man sitting onthe left is working on his nets, see the boat across the road),and this is no poverty-stricken district. The flags ahead alertthe traveler to the small Hindu shrine to their right. A dogsleeps in the road; she is thin, but no one will disturb her. As I kept walking I wondered what the white box to theright of the road might be. It turned out to be a refrigeratortruck that would carry the next morning’s catch to nearbymarkets.”

South AsiaThe second major population concentration also lies inAsia and is similar in many ways to that of East Asia. Atthe heart of this cluster lies India, but the concentrationalso extends into Pakistan and Bangladesh and onto theisland of Sri Lanka. Again, note the riverine and coastalorientation of the most densely inhabited zones and thefinger-like extension of dense population on the plain ofthe Ganges River in northern India (Fig. 4-2 C). This isone of the greatest concentrations of people on theEarth.

There are about 1.5 billion people in the South Asiapopulation cluster. Our map shows how sharply this re-gion is marked off by physical barriers: the HimalayaMountains to the north and the desert west of the Indus

River Valley in Pakistan. This is a confined region with arapidly growing population. The capacity of the regionto support this population has, by almost any estimate,already been exceeded. As in East Asia, the overwhelm-ing majority of the people here are farmers, but in SouthAsia the pressure on the land is even greater. InBangladesh, nearly 133 million people, almost all ofthem farmers, are crowded into an area about the size ofIowa. Over large parts of Bangladesh the rural popula-tion density is between 3000 and 5000 people per squaremile. By comparison, in 2002 the population of Iowawas about 3 million people, and less than 40 percentlived on the land rather than in cities and towns. Therural population density was under 30 people per squaremile.


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EuropeFurther inspection of Figures 4-1 and 4-2 reveals that thethird-ranking population cluster also lies in Eurasia—atthe opposite end from China. An axis of dense popula-tion extends from the British Isles into Russia and in-cludes large parts of Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Be-larus. It also includes the Netherlands and Belgium, partsof France, and northern Italy. This European cluster con-tains about 700 million inhabitants, which puts it in aclass with the South Asia concentration—but there thesimilarity ends. A comparison of the population andphysical maps indicates that in Europe terrain and envi-ronment are not as closely related to population distribu-tion as they are in East and South Asia. For example,note that lengthy extension marked D in Figure 4-2,which protrudes far into Russia. Unlike the Asian exten-sions, which reflect fertile river valleys, the European ex-

tension reflects the orientation of Europe’s coal-fields. Ifyou look more closely at the physical map, you will notethat comparatively dense population occurs even inmountainous, rugged country, such as the boundaryzone between Poland and its neighbors to the south. Amuch greater correspondence exists between coastaland river lowlands and high population density in Asiathan in Europe generally.

Another contrast can be seen in the number of Euro-peans who live in cities and towns. The European popu-lation cluster includes numerous cities and towns, manyof which developed as a result of the Industrial Revolu-tion. In Germany, 85 percent of the people live in suchurban places; in the United Kingdom, over 90 percent;and in France, 74 percent. With so many people concen-trated in the cities, the rural countryside is more openand sparsely populated than in East and South Asia,


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where about 30 percent of the people reside in cities andtowns.

The three major population concentrations we havediscussed—East Asia, South Asia, and Europe—accountfor over 4 billion of the total world population of ap-proximately 6 billion people. Nowhere else on the globeis there a population cluster even half as great as any ofthese. Look at the dimensions of the landmasses in Fig-ure 7-1 and note that the populations of South America,Africa, and Australia combined barely exceed the popu-lation of India alone.

North AmericaThe population cluster comprising the east-centralUnited States and southeastern Canada is only aboutone-quarter the size of the smallest of the Eurasian con-centrations. As Figure 4-2 shows, the North American re-gion does not have large, contiguous high-density zoneslike those of Europe or East and South Asia.

The North American population cluster outdoes Eu-rope in some respects. As in the European region, muchof the population is concentrated in major cities whilerural areas are relatively sparsely populated. The majorfocus of the North America cluster lies in the urban com-plex along the eastern seaboard from Boston to Wash-ington, which includes New York, Philadelphia, and Bal-timore. Urban geographers use the term megalopolis torefer to such huge urban agglomerations, and predictthat it is only a matter of time before these agglomera-tions coalesce into an enormous megacity. Other majorfocal points of the North American population cluster areChicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, and with some inter-ruptions, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Ifyou study Figure 7-1 carefully, you will note otherprominent North American cities standing out as smallareas of high-density population; they include Pitts-burgh, St. Louis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Seattle.

Other RegionsFurther examination of Figures 4-1 and 4-2 reveals sub-stantial population clusters in Southeast Asia. These areactually discrete clusters rather than a contiguous popu-lation concentration. The largest of them is the Indone-sian island of Jawa (Java), with more than 120 million in-habitants. Elsewhere in the region populations cluster inthe lowlands of major rivers, such as the Mekong. Nei-ther these river valleys nor the rural surroundings of thecities have population concentrations comparable tothose of either China or India, and under normal circum-stances Southeast Asia is able to export rice to its hun-grier neighbors. Over many decades of strife, however,the region has been disrupted to such a degree that itsproductive potential has not been attained.

South America, Africa, and Australia do not havepopulation concentrations comparable to those we have

considered so far. Subsaharan Africa’s nearly 650 millioninhabitants cluster in above-average densities in WestAfrica (where Nigeria has a population of some 130 mil-lion) and in a zone in the east extending from Ethiopia toSouth Africa. Only in North Africa is there an agglomera-tion comparable to those found on the crowded riverineplains of Asia. This cluster is in the Nile Valley and delta,which has over 66 million residents. Note that the patternof the Nile agglomeration—not the dimensions—resembles the pattern seen in Asia. As in East and SouthAsia, the Nile Valley and delta teem with farmers whocultivate every foot of the rich and fertile soil. However,the lowlands of the Ganges, Chang Jiang (Yangtzi), andHuang He (Yellow) rivers contain far more inhabitants.

The large light-shaded spaces in South America andAustralia, and the peripheral distribution of the modestpopulations of these continents, suggest that there issome space here for the world’s huge population. In-deed, South America could probably sustain more thanits present 360 million people if reforms were made inpatterns of land ownership and use in the region. At pre-sent, while the people of South America as a whole arewell fed, poverty and malnutrition occur in some areas,such as northeast Brazil.

This raises an issue that is central to any study ofpopulation density and the capacity of a country to sup-port its people: level of technology. You will note thatJapan, a small island country, has a population of over127 million. Its population density is at least as great asthat of parts of China and India, but its farmlands arequite limited, not only by its small size but, as we noted,also by its mountainous character. What makes such alarge population in Japan possible is Japan’s technologi-cal prowess, industrial capacity, and money-producingexports. Japan imports raw materials from all over theworld, converts them into finished products, and exportsthose products to most parts of the globe. With the in-come brought in by these exports, Japan can buy thefood that it cannot produce at home. Thus it is notenough to say that a country cannot support more than aspecific number of people. We should qualify this state-ment by observing that under present economic, politi-cal, and technological conditions it can or cannot sup-port a given population, depending on its status in theworld market. So, while Australia could not find a placefor tens of millions of Chinese farmers, if tens of millionsof Japanese came to Australia with their skills, technolo-gies, factories, and international connections, Australiawould be quite capable of accommodating them—andmany more.

Having examined the distribution and general den-sity of global and regional populations, we now come tothe crucial issue: population growth—its history, dimen-sions, and spatial expression. The next chapter links themaps of distribution and density with the dynamics ofdemographic change.


arithmetic population densitycensusdemographydensity

◆ APPLYING GEOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE ◆


◆ KEY TERMS ◆

distributionmegalopolisphysiologic population densitypopulation concentration

population datapopulation densitypopulation geography

1. If the arithmetic density measure is of so little prac-tical use, why do you suppose it is listed in virtuallyevery database published by population-monitoringagencies? Which State in the United States has the lowest arithmetic density, and how meaningfulis that statistic? When it comes to physiologic den-sity, this measure is much more relevant, in practi-cal terms, for some countries than for others. Com-pare the Netherlands and Bangladesh in thiscontext.

2. Some of the world’s largest cities, such as Mumbai(Bombay), Shanghai, and Cairo, lie in countries thatrank among the world’s least urbanized societies. Ex-plain this apparent contradiction.

3. An international food-relief agency has asked you toprepare a report to help make food distribution in acertain area, threatened by famine, more efficient. Willyou use maps of population distribution (dot maps) orpopulation density (isopleth maps) to support yourcase? What role will scale play in your presentation?

population patterns and processes

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