Use with skeletal notes

1. Population

2. Where is the world’s population
distributed?

3. I Where are the people
A. People are not evenly distributed. Half
live in cities (URBAN), the other half in
rural areas.
B. Ninety percent live on 20% of land,and half
live on only 5% of the land. Humans
occupy only a small portion of the land on
earth.
C. There are four generalizations when it
comes to how population is distributed
around our planet.

4. 1. Ninety percent live north of the Equator and
2/3 of people live in the mid-latitudes.
2. People live in low elevations. Between 50-
60% of the population lives below 1,000 ft.
and nearly 80% live below 1650 ft.
3. People live near the coasts. Two-thirds of
all people live within 300 miles of an ocean.
4. People live near fertile land along rivers.

5. 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 Canada.
E Other notable areas include Egypt,
Java, the S.E. South American coast and
parts of Africa.

7. 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 the earth.
D. Thirty-five to 40% of all land does not
have any significant human settlement.

8. IV Non-Ecumene
A. Dry Lands
1. Major deserts include the Sahara, Arabian, Thar,
Taklimakan, Gobi, Atacama, S.W. USA, and much of
Australia
B. Wet Lands
1. Amazon basin, Congo Basin, and along the Equator
C. Cold Lands
1. Polar Regions
D. High Lands
1. Major Mountain ranges include Rockies, Alps,
Himalayas, and Andes

9. 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

10. 1. Crude density or Arithmetic density. This
is the number of people per unit of land.
This is easy to obtain, though it 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
(how many farmers per unit of arable
land).

11. China
Population 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?

13. Where has the world’s
population increased?

14. 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.
1. TFR of 2.1 to 2.3 is the replacement
level of fertility.

16. II Death Rates
A. CDR= Crude Death Rate. Also called
mortality rate. It is measured in deaths per
1000 people
B. Pre WWII, death rates were much higher in
developing countries than developed
countries. Post WWII, that is not true
because of the development of modern
medicines and health information.
C. Life expectancy is what age you can expect
to live to. In developing countries CDR
has gone down while life expectancy has
gone up.
D. Countries with high AIDS rates are the
exception.

18. III Natural Increase
A. Rate of Natural Increase shows rate of
population growth without factoring in
migration
B. It is figured by starting with birth rate
and subtracting the 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).

20. IV 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.