Population

1. Population

2. Issues of Population Geography
• Population Growth
• Population Change (Think Baby Boomers)
• Migration
• Refugees
• Population Policies
• Food Supply Shortages

3. Many Ways of Measuring Population:
Population Density –
measure of total population
relative to land size
(arithmetic population
density).

4. World Population Density

5. Population Concentration

6. Arithmetic Density – the total number of people per a
unit of land area. U.S. = 76/mi2
; NYC=1,000,000/mi2
;
Australia = 7/mi2

7. Physiologic Population Density –
number of people per unit area of agriculturally productive
land (take this map into account).

8. Nile River Valley from the International Space Station

9. Physiologic
Population
Density
Luxor, Egypt
Egypt’s arable lands are along
the Nile River Valley.
Moving away from the river a
few blocks, the land becomes
sandy and wind-sculpted.

12. Dot Map of World Population –
On this map, one dot represents 100,000 people
Population Distribution –
Descriptions of locations on the Earth’s surface where
individuals or groups (depending on the scale) live.

13. World Population Distribution and Density
• East Asia
- ¼ of world population here
• South Asia
- bound by the Himalayas and a desert in Pakistan
• Europe
- population is concentrated in cities
• North America
- megalopolis

14. World and Country Population
Totals
Distribution and Structure: 3/4 of people live on 5%
of earth's surface!
Total: 6,738,611,742 as of August 21, 2007
Current Population Counter
Five most populous regions and countries
REGION POPULATION COUNTRY POPULATION
• East Asia 1.5 billion China 1.254 billion
• South Asia 1.2 billion India 986 million
• Europe 750 million U.S. 274 million
• SE Asia 500 million Indonesia 206 million
• East N. Am.120 million Brazil 168 million

15. Populations are falling in some parts of the world.
How will Figure 2.5 look different 50 years from
now? If you were updating this picture in 50
years, where would the largest population
clusters in the world be?

16. Why do Populations Rise or Fall
in Particular Places?
Key Question:

17. A Population Bomb?
• Malthus (early 1800s) worried about
population growing exponentially and
resources growing linearly.
• Ehrlich (1960s) warned of a population
bomb because the world’s population was
outpacing food production.

18. Population Not So Bad?
• Jean Antoine Condorcet
– predicted that innovation, resulting
increased wealth, and choice would
provide food and resources in the future
and lead to fewer children per family
– believed that society was perfectable
• Cornicopians
-Believe that population is good for the economy,
environment, and technology

19. Exponential
Growth –
Malthusian
Theory

20. World Population Growth –
Rate of natural increase (does not take into account immigration
and emigration).

21. Population J-Curve

22. Today, the pace of world population growth is slowing.
Where have Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) fallen
below replacement level (2.3) and why?

23. Population Growth in India
• Significant
demographic
variations occur
within countries.
– In India, growth
rates are higher
in the east and
northeast.

24. Why do Growth Rates Vary in India?
• 1960s population planning program
• 1970s country began forced sterilization
program for men with 3 or more children.
– 22.5 million men were sterilized.
• 2004 state of Uttar Pradesh began guns for
sterilization program.
• Today, most states use advertising and
persuasion to lower birth rates.

25. Maharashtra, India. A sign reads “free family planning sterlization
operation” closed in 1996.

26. The Demographic Transition
in Great Britain
• Studied the change in birth rates, death
rates, and natural growth rates over the
course of British industrialization.
• Found a transition occurred when death
rates decline and then birth rates decline,
resulting in a low or sustained growth rate.

27. World Birth Rate –
number of births in a year per 1,000 people.

28. World Mortality Rate –
number of deaths in a year per 1,000 people.