Population Flashcards
A study of population is the basis for understanding a wide variety of issues in human geography. To study the challenge of increasing the food supply, reducing pollution, and encouraging economic growth, geographers must ask ____________.
Where and why a region’s population is distributed as it is.
In demography, what does demos and graphy mean?
Demos = people. Graphy = writing.
What is demography defined as?
The study of human populations: their size, composition, and distribution, as well as the causes and consequences of changes in these characteristics.
Populations are never ______. They _____ or _______ through the interplay of three demographic processes: ______, _______, and _________. If some groups within a population grow or decline faster than others, the _______is altered.
Static.
Grow or decline.
Birth, death, and migration.
Composition of the whole.
The world’s human population at the end of the most recent ice age, about 10,000 years ago, was somewhere between ___ and _______ people. It had taken perhaps 1 to 2 million years for the population to grow to this size.
2-10 million
From 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1 the population doubled almost ______ times, to between _______.
Six
200-400 million
Between A.D. 1 and 1750, growth continued at about the same rate, ultimately reaching _______ by 1750.
550 million
The world population reached: 1 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 2 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 3 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 4 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 5 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 6 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_ 7 billion in \_\_\_\_\_\_
1804 1927 1960 1974 1987 1999 2013
The world population may reach:
8 billion in ____
9 billion in ____
10 billion in ___
2028
2054
2183
Currently the worlds population is _____. _______ are in more developed countries and ________are in less developed countries.
7,238,184,000
1,248,958,000
5,989,225,000
The natural increase per year for the entire world is ______. For developed countries its ______. For less developed countries its ______.
86,582,000
1,466,000
85,115,000
What are the top ten countries with the highest population?
- China
- India
- United States
- Indonesia
- Brazil
- Pakistan
- Nigeria
- Bangladesh
- Russia
- Japan
What percent of the world’s total population is in:
- Africa
- Asia
- Oceania
- Europe
- North America
- Latin America and Caribbean?
- 14%
- 60.5%
- 0.5
- 11.5%
- 5%
- 8.5%
What ten countries have the highest population growth rate in 2014?
- Lebanon
- Zimbabwe
- South Sudan
- Jordan
- Qatar
- Malawi
- Niger
- Burundi
- Uganda
- Libya
What is the Laurentian Shield? What does it explain?
A large area of exposed precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form the ancient geological core of the North American continent covered by a thin layer of of soil.
It explains why more Canadians live near the border.
The Laurentian Shield is _____.
One of the world’s richest areas in terms of mineral ores.
Who was Thomas Malthus?
An economist and English orason
What did Malthus’ essay “An Essay on the Principle of Population” (1798) theorize? What was it a response to?
A theory on population dynamics and its relationship with the availability of resources. It was a response to positivist theorists that praised the “perfectibility of man” and claimed that human knowledge would act as a source of welfare and freedom for future generations.
What did “An Essay on the Principle of Population” postulate (two of them)?
- Food is necessary to the existence of man
2. The passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state
What is the Malthusian Trap?
Malthus argued that the difference between geometric and arithmetic growth caused a tension between the growth of population and that of the means of subsistence. He believed that this gap could not persist indefinitely. He offered the gloomy prediction that in a short period of time, scarce resources will have to be shared among an increasing number of individuals.
What were Malthus’ eight population predictions?
- Subsistence severely limits population-level
- When the means of subsistence increases, population increases
- Population-pressures stimulate increases in productivity
- Increases in productivity stimulate further population-growth (i.e. rise in real wages)
- Since this productivity can not keep up with the potential of population growth for long, population requires strong checks to keep it in line with carrying-capacity
- Individual cost/benefit decisions regarding sex, work, and children determine the expansion or contraction of population and production
- Checks will come into operation as population exceeds subsistence-level (i.e. real wages cannot keep pace with inflating prices for food)
- The nature of these checks will have a significant effect on the rest of the sociocultural system — Malthus points specifically to misery, vice, and poverty
What are the positive checks to controlling population (Vice and Misery)?
- War
- Famine
- Disease/Pestilence/
Plague - Infanticide (bad nursing of children)
What are the preventive check for controlling population (Moral restraint)
- Celibacy
- Non-procreative sex
- Contraception (Malthus opposed artificial birth control methods on moral grounds)
- Homosexuality
What is the point of crisis in Malthus’ theory?
When the population passes the threshold of resources