chapter 6 notes Flashcards
What is Population Geography (geodemography)?
the study of the spatial variations in populations
World Population Distribution
90% of people live north of the Equator, 66% between 20o and 60o
More than 70% of world’s pop. lives on ~10% of the land
Most live at low altitudes (nearly 80% below 500 metres)
Most live on continental margins (~60% live within 100 km of the ocean)
Four major clusters of settlement
East Asia Zone (China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea).
South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka).
European (Most of Europe and Europeanized Russia).
Northeastern US/Southeastern Canada
Population Distribution and Density: arithmetic
number of people per unit area of land
Crude measure
Doesn’t take resources into account
Population/total land area
Population Distribution and Density: physiological
number of total people per unit of arable (farm) land
population/farmland
Malthusian Population Theory
Malthus (early 1800s) worried about population growing exponentially and resources growing linearly
An Essay on the Principle of Population
population growth (exponential) has the potential to outstrip increases in subsistence resources (arithmetic)
Positive checks (famine) and preventative checks (later marriage)
Neo-Malthusians
Neo-Malthusians: people with the same views as Malthus
Ehrlich (1960s) warned of a population bomb because the world’s population was outpacing food production
Criticism of Malthus and Neo-Malthusians:
The assumption that the environment determines population size
Malthus didn’t anticipate the food revolutions (cornucopian theory – humans will create new inventions)
Crude Birth Rate
BPY/pop @mid-year x 1000
Crude because the denominator is not limited to women
Requires few data which are commonly available and is easy to calculate
Problem: can mask important age or sex differentials
Expected range in values is 10-~50 per 1,000
The Crude Death Rate (CDR)
DPY/mid-year pop x 1000
Defined as the number of deaths divided by the population at risk
A poor measure of mortality in some respects (not sensitive to age structure, gender, education etc)
6 is low, 20 is high
Infant Mortality Rate
deaths under 1yr / bpy x 1000
is sensitive to poor living conditions and poverty
Is used to compare health and well-being of populations across and within countries
infant mortality trends in canada
improved/declined, but levelling off
rate of natural increase
Rate of natural increase – annual growth rate for a county or region as a percentage increase
This tells us how much the population is increasing (or decreasing) each year
RNI = (CBR - CDR)
CBR = B x 1000 CDR = D x 1000
P P
Example: world crude birthrate = 21/1,000
World crude deathrate = 9/1,000
World RNI = 21-9=12 births per 1000 or 1.2% annualy
RNI practice
2005 Manitoba population: 1,174,000
Live births: 14,801
Deaths: 9,856
CBR: 12.6
CDR: 8.40
RNI: .42% (does not include migration
Rate of growth – adding migration
A measure of the average, annual rate of increase for a population
For the world as a whole, it is possible to convert the RNI to the rate of population growth by converting the rate per 1000 to an annual percentage
World RNI is 12 per thousand = rate of population growth, 1.2%
most of the time migration must be considered, making rni different from rate of growth
RNI + or – net migration = growth rate
Canadian Statistics:
Population: 33,098,932
Crude birth rate: 10.78 births/1,000 population
Crude death rate: 7.8 deaths/1,000 population
RNI = 0.3% (no migration)
Net migration rate: 5.85 migrants/1,000 population
Population growth rate: 0.88%
Difference is from net migration
US RNI: 0.6%
US growth rate: 1.0%
imp. ones:
RNI = 0.3% (no migration)
Population growth rate: 0.88%
Difference is from net migration
Doubling time
The number of years required for a population to double in size
Can approximate this by dividing into 70 the annual rate of population growth
Doubling time = 70
Annual rate of population growth
World = 70
1.2 = 58 years