Chapter 2Key 1

Where is the World’s Population Distributed?

I Where are the people

A. People are not evenly distributed. Half live in cities (URBAN), the other half in rural areas.

B. 9/10 live on 20% of land, half live on only 5%. Humans occupy only a small portion of the land on earth

C. There are 4 generalizations when it comes to how population distributed around our planet

1. 90% live north of the Equator and 2/3 live in the mid latitudes.

2. People live in low elevations. Between 50-60% of population lives below 1,000 ft. and nearly 80% live below 1650 ft.

3. People live near the coasts. 2/3 of all people live within 300 miles of an ocean.

4. People live near fertile land along rivers.

II 4 Areas of Large Populations

A East Asia, including Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, 25% of people on earth

B South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. 21%

C Europe contains another 12%D Northeast USA and Southeast CanadaE other notable areas include Egypt,

Java, S.E. South American coast and parts of Africa.

III Ecumene

A. The ecumene is the part of the world that Is permanently inhabited.

B. People locally extend the ecumene through irrigation, terracing fields,

etc.

C. Nonecumene is the uninhabited or sparsely occupied areas of earth.

D. 35 to 40% of all land does not have any significant human settlement.

IV Non-Ecumene

• Dry Lands– Major deserts include the Sahara, Arabian, Thar,

Takla Makan, Gobi, Atacama, S.W. USA, and much of Australia

• Wet Lands– Amazon basin, Congo Basin, and along the Equator

• Cold Lands– Polar Regions

• High Lands– Major Mountain ranges include Rockies, Alps,

Himalayas, and Andes

V Population Density

A. Population density is the relationship between the number of inhabitants

and the area they occupy.

B. There are three types of density figures that geographers look at

1. Crude density or Arithmetic density. Number of people per unit of land.

This is easy to obtain, is only an average of total land, and often does not give a

proper image of a place.

2. Physiological density is the number of people divided by the arable land (land that is good for farming)

3. Agricultural density only takes into account rural residents and arable land.

ChinaPopulation Case Study

• Arithmetic density 350 people/square mile

• physiological density 3,500 people/square mile.

• Only 10% of China is cultivable, and 80% of the population lives on this land.

• Distribution: western 2/3s of China (mostly minorities) is sparsely populated.

•  Why?

Chapter 2Key 2

Where Has the World’s Population Increased?

I Birth Rates

A. CBR = Crude Birth Rate. How many babies are born for every 1000

people

B. TFR= Total Fertility Rate. How many babies the average woman of a

country could expect to have. This gives a better idea of reproduction rates.

C. TFR of 2.1 to 2.3 is the replacement level of fertility.

II Death Rates

A. CDR= Crude Death Rate. Also called mortality rate is deaths per 1000 people

B. Pre WWII, death rates were much higher in developing countries than developed

countries. Post WWII, that is not true due to modern medicines.

C. Life expectancy is what age you can expect to live. In developing countries CDR

has gone down while life expectancy has gone up.

D. Countries with high AIDS rates are the exception.

IV Natural Increase

A. Rate of Natural Increase shows rate of population growth without factoring in

migration

B. Figured by starting with birth rate and subtracting death rate. It is usually

shown as a percentage. Example. CB is 22 and CD is 12, 22-12=10 Natural increase would be 1% (of 1000)

V Doubling Times

A. Doubling time is the time it would take for a population to double at the current

natural increase rate.B. Populations grow exponentially rather than

arithmetically. This is sometimes called a J-curve.

C. Doubling time predictions are almost never accurate because so much can change in a population over time. Immigration and emigration rates change as does life expectancy and social policies or practices.