POPULATION GEOGRAPHY

APPROACHES TO
GEOGRAPHY TODAY
Physical Geography
deals with earth's natural processes,
such as landforms, climates, soils, vegetation,
and hydrology.
Human Geography
deals with the spatial organization of human
activity and of people's relationships with the
environment around them.
Economic Geography
focuses on a certain geographical theme,
such as climate or economics, and examines
it throughout the world.
Regional Geography
focuses on certain regions, such as Latin
America or Africa, and examines several
geographical themes for that particular area.
Questions Geographers
Seek to Answer
Please answer where questions in four ways
by describing the following features
of a location:
• place-name, also known as a toponym
• situation
• site
• mathematical location
Take a moment and try to define where
you live using these four ways of
describing location. For example, the
place-name, or toponym, of the city
where I currently reside is Bloomington,
Indiana. Its situation is fifty
miles southwest of Indianapolis, found in
the rolling hills of southern
Indiana, its site. The mathematical
location of Bloomington is 39°8' N,
86°37' W.
How Geographers
Understand Reality
Three-dimensional space
simply means that we can pinpoint any
location within our world using three lines.
To understand why things are located where
they are and distributed as they are,
geographers generally apply two sets of
organizational tools, or methods of analysis:
regional analysis and spatial analysis.
Regional analysis, or what Rubenstein calls
regional studies, identifies the unique
geographic characteristics of a place or area.
Rubenstein identifies three types of regions:
• formal
• functional
• vernacular
Formal region
as a defined boundary, within which
everything shares some trait.
Functional region
area organized around a central hub or focal
point.
Vernacular region
also known as a perceptual region or a folk
region, is a geographical area that is defined
by the common perceptions, experiences, and
cultural identity of the people who live within
the region.
Spatial Analysis
Spatial analysis focuses on the interactions
between two or more areas, including the
diffusion, or spread, of people and their
characteristics from one place to another
over time.
Population Geography:
The Measurement and
Implications of Growth
Demography
is the study of population characteristics as
they pertain to a particular region or society.
Population Distribution
Earth's population is not randomly dispersed
across lands. In fact, there are many logical
reasons why population clusters exist in
areas called the ecumene and why some
areas remain sparsely populated.
Population Dynamics
The size of a population, either for a
particular place or the entire earth, is always
in a state of change. Two main forces are at
play in this dynamic, fertility and
mortality.
Crude Birth Rate
Population grows with births, and the
crude birth rate (CDR) is used to
measure this growth. The CBR is the
number of births in a year for every
1000 people in a country.
Total Fertility Rate
Related to the crude birth rate is the
total fertility rate (TFR). The TFR
is the average number of children a
woman in a particular country will have
during her childbearing years.
Crude Death Rate
Population declines with deaths, and
this rate of decrease is measured with
the crude death rate (CDR). The
CDR is the number of deaths in a year
for every 1000 people in a country.
Infant Mortality Rate
The infant mortality rate (IMR) is
defined as the total number of deaths
of infants before their first birthday for
every 1000 births in a country.
Life Expectancy
Life expectancy is the average
number of years a person will live,
given the current conditions of a
country.
Natural Increase Rate
The natural increase rate (NIR)
measures the percentage growth of a
population in a given year. It is
calculated as the crude birth rate minus
the crude death rate (CBR -CDR), and
then converted to a percentage.
Doubling Time
The doubling time is the number of
years it will take a population to double
in size.
Zero Population Growth
In order for a country to become stable,
the NIR must equal zero, a situation
that occurs when births equal deaths.
This point is called zero population
growth (ZPG).
Demographic Transition
demographic transition is a
phenomenon and theory which refers to
the historical shift from high birth rates
and high death rates in societies with
minimal technology, education
(especially of women) and economic
development, to low birth rates and low
death rates in societies with advanced
technology, education and economic
development, as well as the stages
between these two scenarios.
Overpopulation or
Population Pressure?
Is the world overpopulated? That is, are
there too many people to be supported by
the available food supply and resources?
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834),
an English economist and clergyman,
believed in a doomsday scenario where
population growth would outpace
human ability to produce food, leading
to famine, war, and diseases.
Neo-Malthusians, present day
believers of Malthus's ideas, point out
that the majority of future population
growth will occur in LDCs, places
where food production and other
resources may not be able to keep pace
with rapid population growth. They call
for limiting population growth in these
countries to avoid future famines and
wars over resources.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) and
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
viewed the overpopulation debate
differently. They believed that there
was enough food and other resources in
the world to sustain the burgeoning
population~ the problem was that the
resources were unevenly distributed.
Finally, there are the cornucopian,
named after the fabled horn of plenty.
The cornucopian have a completely
different view on overpopulation. They
believe that there is no population
problem at all because the world is rich
in resources~ we just have to improve
our technology to use them.

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