Population & Migration
Population Distribution Humans are not distributed evenly across the earth. Geographers identify regions of Earth s surface where population is clustered and regions where it is sparse. A census determines the number of people in a region. The concentration of the world s population can be displayed on a cartogram, which shows the sizes of the countries according to population rather than land area.
The cartogram displays major population clusters as much larger than a typical map. Population Concentrations Two-thirds of the world s population is clustered in four regions: East Asia, South Asia, Europe and Southeast Asia. These are generally low-lying areas with fertile soil and moderate climates, near the ocean or a river with easy access to an ocean, rather than the inside of major land masses.
Almost one-fourth of the world s population lives in East Asia, which includes China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The People s Republic of China is the world s most populous country and the fourth-largest in land area.
More than one-half of the Chinese people live in rural areas where they work as farmers. In contrast to China, more than three-fourths of all Japanese and Koreans are clustered in urban areas and work at industrial or service jobs. South Asia: nearly one-fourth of the world s population live in South Asia, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the island of Sri Lanka. The largest concentration of people in this area lives along a 900-mile corridor from Lahore, Pakistan, through India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. Like the Chinese, most people in South Asia are farmers living in rural areas. Europe: This region includes four dozen countries, ranging from Monaco at one square kilometer (0.7 miles) and a population of 33,000 to Russia
the world s largest country. Unlike Asia, ¾ of Europeans live in cities and fewer than 10% are farmers. The highest population concentration in Europe is near major rivers, coalfields, and historic capital cities such as London and Paris. Southeast Asia: This area is mostly made up of a series of islands that lie between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The fourth-most populous country, Indonesia, is found here. Like the rest of Asia, most people in these countries are rural farmers. Other clusters: The largest population concentration in the Western Hemisphere is in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Africa also has a cluster located along the Atlantic coast, especially the portion facing south, and like Asia, most Africans work in agriculture.
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Why is Global Population Increasing? Population increases rapidly in places where many more people are born than die, and declines in places where deaths outnumber births. Geographers use three measures to determine population change: 1) crude birth rate (CBR): the number of lives births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society. 2) Crude death rate (CDR): the total number of deaths in a year per 1,000 people alive in the society. 3) Natural increase rate (NIR): the percentage by which a population grows in a year. The term natural means that a country s growth rate excludes migration.
During the 21 st century, the world NIR has been growing by 1.2%. Most of humanity s several-hundred-thousand-year occupancy of Earth was characterized by an NIR of essentially zero, and Earth s population was unchanged at about a half-million.
About 82 million people are being added to the population each year. The number of people added each year has dropped more slowly than the NIR because the population base is much higher now than in the past. More than 95 % of the natural increase is clustered in developing countries. These are poor agricultural countries that are seeking to become more advanced economically and socially. About ¼ of the world s population growth during the past decade has been in South Asia, ¼ in sub- Saharan Africa, and the rest divided equally among East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Southwest Asia and North Africa.
This means that most of the world s additional people live in he countries that are least able to maintain them. The reason for this has to do with differences and fertility and mortality rates. The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children a woman will have throughout her childbearing years (roughly 15-49). The TFR is higher in developing countries and lower in developed countries. The world s CDR doesn t follow the same patterns as CBR, NIR, and TFR. The highest CDR in the world is 14.9 (Lesotho [2016]) and the lowest is 1.5 (Qatar [2016]).
The Demographic Transition The demographic transition is the process of change in a society s population from high crude birth and death rates and low natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rather, low rate of natural increase and higher total population. This process is made up of four stages and every country on earth is in one of them. 1. Stage 1-Low growth: Most of human history was spent in this stage, but today no country is here. Every country has moved on to at least stage two.
Stage 2- High growth: Europe and North America entered stage 2 of the transition after 1750, because of the Industrial Revolution. This stage did not reach Africa, Asia, and Latin America until around 1950, and it made that transition for a different reason than Europe and North America. The medical revolution caused these regions to reach stage two. Medical technology invented in Europe and America dispersed to developing countries, and improved medical practices have eliminated many of the traditional causes of death in developing countries and enables more people to experience longer and healthier lives.
Stage 3-Decreasing Growth: A country moves from stage 2 to stage 2 of the demographic transition when the CBR begins to drop sharply. The CDR continues to fall as well, but at a much slower rate than in stage 2. The population continues to grow because the CBR is still greater than the CDR. A society enters stage three when people have fewer children. Economic changes in stage 3 societies also induce people to have fewer kids because people in these societies are more likely to live in cities than in the countryside and to work in offices, shops, factories, etc. rather than farms. Most countries in Europe and North America moved from stage 2 to stage 3 during the first half of the 20 th century.
Stage 4-Low Growth: A country reaches stage four when the CBR declines to the pint where it equals the CDR and the NIR approaches 0. This is called zero population growth. Women in stage 4 societies enter the labor force rather than stay home as full-time homemakers. They also have wider access to birth control methods, so they are more likely to use them.
Population Pyramids A country s population structure can be displayed on a bar graph called a population pyramid. Population pyramids can compare the the number of people who are too old or too young to work (dependency ratio). The larger the dependency ratio, the greater the burden on those who are working to support those who are not. They can also compare the ages of males versus females (sex ratio)