Name_______________________________________ AP HG 2.

2
Date______________

POPULATION & How do we measure population?

MIGRATION

DO NOW: Fill in the blanks using the word box!

coal farmers arable

physical conditions LDCs East
50% deserts cities
ecumene distributed Europe
Bangladesh Asia India

Throughout human history, people have been unevenly distributed Where people
live is heavily influenced by physical conditions.

Populations are often clustered around sustaining resources, such as bodies of

water and arable land. Fewer people live in deserts, for example.

Approximately 75% of all humans live on only 5% of Earth’s surface, the portion
called the ecumene.

About 50% of people on Earth live in cities, whereas the other half live in rural
areas.

Approximately 80% of Earth’s population lives in poorer, LDCs in Latin America,

Africa and Asia.

The largest concentration of people on Earth is found in Asia. Most Asians are
subsistence Farmers.

The second largest concentration of People is in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and Pakistan).

The third-largest concentration is in Europe.

 POPULATION DENSITY

ARITHMETIC/POPULATION DENSITY:

Number of People/Land Area

HIGH DENSITY = lot of people, LOW DENSITY = little people, lot

little land of land
 India  Chad
 Vietnam  Russia
 Netherlands  Bolivia
PHYSIOLOGICAL DENSITY
Number of people/Unit of Arable Land

HIGH DENSITY = lot of people, LOW DENSITY = more arable land

little arable land than people
 Colombia  Russia
 Indonesia  Mongolia
Great pressure to produce enough
food
AGRICULTURAL DENSITY
Number of farmers/Unit of arable land

HIGH DENSITY = Lot of farmers for LOW DENSITY = lot of farmland,

available farmland little farmers

 DRC  USA
 Madagascar
MDCS: technology and finance
allow a few people to farm
extensive land
 1. What does it mean that Canada has a low arithmetic density?

Canada has very few people and very much land.

2. The United States has a small agricultural density. What does this mean?

The USA has a lot of farmland and very few farmers

3. Why do MDCs have lower agricultural densities?

They have technology that makes farming more efficient, reducing the need for many
farmers.

4. Which two countries have the largest amount of people per unit of arable land?
Japan, Egypt
 2.1 Mr. Sinn Review

Describe the Cartogram he shows

It shows the world distorted in size and shape depending on their population.

List and describe the four major population regions

1.East Asia Centered around coast

2.South Asia

3. Europe Centered around natural resources

4. Southeast Asia

In two complete sentences describe how site and situation factors influence settlement.
The site and situation of settlement greatly influences their population. Proximity to water and
resources influence settlement due to trade and economic factors, situation also can affect settlement in
many ways, such as being culturally connected to many people, having job opportunities, and many
more.

List and describe the four place that are non-ecumene according to Mr. Sinn
1. Areas that are too hot

2. Areas that are too cold

3. Areas that are too dry

4. Areas that are too wet

Population Density- People/Land

Arithmetic Density- People/unit of land

Physiological Density- People/arable land

Agricultural Density- Farmers/arable land

Comparing Densities-
1. Arithmetic = People per amount of land

2. Physiological = People per amount of arable land

3. Agricultural = Farmers per amount of arable land.

M.C. Quiz
1. A
2A
3. B
4. A
Canada is a huge country. Most of it is unfit for human
habitation.
by Zack Beauchamp on May 5, 2016, 9:10 a.m. ET @zackbeauchamp
[email protected]

Canada is a gigantic country — but most of its roughly 36 million people live in a
very small area. This map, made by redditor Vugg, gives a sense of just how
concentrated Canada's population is:
The area below the red line includes most of Nova Scotia, in Canada's east, but
most of the population comes from the area a little farther west, in a sliver of
Quebec and a densely populated stretch of Ontario near the Great Lakes.
Toronto's metropolitan area makes up the plurality the population in the region,
around 6.1 million. Much of the Montreal metropolitan area is in there as well,
which amounts to around 4 million people. Other relatively large population centers
in Ontario — like London, Kitchener, and the nation's capital, Ottawa — fill out the
remainder of the roughly 18 million people living below the red line.

So why did so many Canadians settle here? According to the late William Lewis
Morton, an eminent Canadian historian, it's basically about agriculture. The best
arable land has always been in Canada's south — no surprise, given the cold
weather farther north. A lot of that arable land is in the area we see below the red
line.

"Intensive commercial agriculture," Morton writes, "gave rise to a dense network of

villages, towns, and cities." When Canada industrialized, it made sense to do that
where the people already were, so the population in this area grew.

Even outside of the red line, Canada's population is mostly very close to the US.
Ninety percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. Maybe they
just really wanted to be close to America.

1. Does Canada have a high or low arithmetic density? Explain.

Canada has a low arithmetic density. They have very few people and a lot of
land

2. Which Canadian city has the biggest population?

Toronto

3. How can geographers explain Canada’s population distribution?

It is dense in the far south, but extremely sparse everywhere else.

4. What percentage of people live within 100 miles of the United States border?
90%

WHY DOES IT MATTER? THE IMPACT OF POPULATION DENSITY:

Arithmetic (crude) Density

This measure of population density is also called crude density. This statistic is
probably the most general and least useful of the three measures of population
density. To get crude density, divide the total land area by the total population. You
can see that when you measure a large area of land, the arithmetic density
becomes meaningless because it “blends in” the urban population and masks the
sparsely-inhabited areas with an average. Arithmetic density is more useful when
you study homogeneous areas, like single cities or towns, where populations are
fairly evenly-distributed

Physiological Density
This may be the most helpful way of expressing population density. Physiological
density is the number of persons per unit of agricultural land. This measure of
density is useful, because it can give us a rough estimate of how many people an
area of farmland can reasonably support.

Physiological density is also helpful when studying population pressure and

overcrowding. Population pressure is the total of all the factors, like an increase in
population, which reduces the ability of a geographic area to support the
inhabitants.

The productivity of the land is also a factor in studying the physiological density of
an area. Is the soil very fertile and arable or is it overworked and poor? Since there
are other factors that you must consider, physiological density is not a foolproof
statistic.

What can we deduce from looking at a country’s physiological density? We know

that the higher the physiological density is, the more pressure people put on the
land to produce enough food to survive. It also suggests that the available
agricultural land is being used by more people, and it may reach its output limit
sooner than a country that has a lower physiological density.

To put this concept into numbers, the United States has a physiological density of
179, whereas Djibouti, in the Middle East, comes in at 131,101. That means the
government of Djibouti must rely on external sources of food.

Agricultural Density
The measure of population density refers to the number of people living in rural
areas per unit of agricultural land. You do not count people who live in cities when
calculating the agricultural density, only the estimated number of people actually
living off the farmland.
To find the agricultural density, divide the area of farmland by the population of
farmers in that area, giving you an average of land worked by each farmer. You will
find a lower level of agricultural density in more developed countries, because they
have access to better technology and money, which allows an individual to work
more farmland. The condition of the soil can also affect agricultural density since
some countries have much more fertile land than others. The bottom line is that a
higher level of agricultural density may mean that that available arable may reach
the end of its production potential sooner than an area of a lower level of
agricultural density.

In general, increases in population density equate to problems for a country. Urban

areas with a high arithmetic density have an increased need for food, infrastructure,
and health/human services. These programs are extremely costly, and the economy
of many high-growth countries can’t adequately provide basic services for their
citizens. There are positive and negative influences of population density on
political, economic and social processes.

Political Economic Social

More laws are needed More jobs needed More crime
Large cities hold the Poverty increases More health/human
power Higher tax base services needed
Greater diversity

As the world population grows, greater pressure is being placed on arable land,
water, energy, and natural resources to provide a satisfactory supply of food while
maintaining balance in our ecosystem. Population density can have a negative
impact on our environment and natural resources. These pressures can lead to
deforestation, result in overcrowding, and could lead to the destruction of our
planet’s delicate ecosystem. Growing populations use large amounts of
nonrenewable resources like timber, coal, and oil. Once these natural resources are
gone, they are gone forever.

Population density impacts the carrying capacity of an area. The carrying capacity
is defined as how many people an area can support on a sustained basis. Together
with density, carrying capacity can define whether an area is overcrowded. You can
have an area of high population density but is not considered overcrowded if the
area has a high carrying capacity. The area may have very rich soil and modern
farming methods. A country such as Greenland has a very low carrying capacity.
This could make the country overpopulated at a density that would make other
places underpopulated

Practice Questions:

1. If the physiological density is much larger than the arithmetic density, then a country has
a. Inefficient farmers
b. A large number of farmers
c. A small percentage of land suitable for agriculture CORRECT
d. Too many people for the available resources
e. Too few farmers for the large area of land suitable for agriculture
2. India and the United States have approximately the same arithmetic density. From this
we can conclude that the two countries have the same
a. Level of output per area of land
b. Number of people per area of land CORRECT
c. Pressure placed by people on the land to produce food
d. Number of farmers per area of land
e. All of the above