1 Population Distribution and Density


Population distribution The term population distribution refers to the way in which people are


dispersed (spread out) across the world, a country, a region or any other geographical area. You will see from Figure 1 that the world’s human population is very


unevenly distributed. Some areas are crowded and are described as being densely populated. Other areas have very few people and are described as being sparsely populated. Densely populated areas enjoy several positive factors that encourage human settlement. Sparsely populated areas usually have a combination of negative factors that discourage human settlement. Some of those positive and negative features are listed on the next page.


A D C B


1


The world at night. This satellite image shows well-lit highly populated regions, as well as dark or almost dark regions that are very lightly populated regions. (a) Name four principal highly populated regions. (b) Why do you think the regions labelled Ato Dare very lightly populated? You can use the information on pages 2 and 3 to check some of your answers.


1


Believe it or not!


 More than 90 per cent of all people live in the northern hemisphere.


 Nearly 80 per cent of people live between 20° and 60° north of the Equator.


 Two-thirds of people live within 500km of a coast.


 Nearly three-quarters of people live in either Asia or Africa.

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