Unit 2 Flashcards
Demography
Studies population and population characteristics
Predicts future growth and identifies potential population issues
demographers
People who study population.They consider how people are spread out by age, health, gender, occupation, and fertility, among other things.
Population distribution
The pattern in which humans are spread out on Earth’s surface.
Eurasia
A massive piece of land on Earth that consists of Europe and Asia
Population clusters
Heavily populated areas that illustrate the unevenness in global population distribution.
The main clusters are:
European, southeast asian, south asian, and east asian clusters
Metacity
A city with more than 20 million residents
Megacity
A city with more than 10 million residents
Developed (or industrialized) country
A country with an advanced economy and a high standard of living.
Developing (or industrializing) countries
Countries that are of relatively low income or economically poorer than developed countries.
Snow Belt
States located in the northern and midwestern parts of the country
Sunbelt
States in coastal areas and the South and Southwest.
Mean center of population
The balancing point given the distribution of population.
Physical Factors
Climate,Landforms,Water bodies
Climate
weather pattern over time; people tend to live in moderate temperatures and in lower latitudes because of the abundance of rainfall
Landforms
People tend to live on areas where they can grow crops or where there are constant sustainable natural resources to sustain human life
Water bodies
water for people and plants (crops), access to freshwater
Elevation
The distance above sea level.
Human Factors
Culture,Economics,History,Political
Culture
people tend to live among their cultural groups
Economics
how can people make money
History
events of the past influence where people live today
Political
types of governments/levels of freedom
After moving for natural features, people move for:
Safety
Economic reasons (Jobs)
Friends or relatives
Close to trade routes (roads, trains, rivers)
Political decisions (military posts in the arctic)
Religious reasons (Amish resettling because of persecution)
Cultural reasons
Density
is the number of people in a space.
Distribution
is the spatial spread of people in a space
Population density
The average number of people per unit of land area.
Arithmetic (crude) density
The average number of people per unit of land area (usually per square mile or kilometer).
Physiological density
The average number of people per unit area (a square mile or kilometer) of arable land — that is, land suitable for cultivation.
Agricultural density
The number of farmers per unit of arable land
Physiological population density differs from crude population density in that physiological density
explains density in terms of people per arable square land unit, while crude density explain density in terms of people per total square land unit
Carrying capacity
The number of people a particular environment or Earth as a whole can support on a sustainable basis
The ability of a resource base to sustain a population is known as its
carrying capacity
Human well-being
The state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.
Population composition
The makeup of the population by age and sex as well as by ethnic, racial, income, and educational background
Age structure
Refers to the breakdown of a population into different age groups or cohorts.
Dependency ratio
The number of dependents in a population, that each 100 working-age people (ages 15 to 64 years) must support.
Youth dependency ratio
The number of young dependents in a population (usually people younger than 15 years of age) that every 100 working-age people must support.
