Population

Key knowledge and skills

•Distribution and composition

• Future patterns

Population - Introduction• Human population involves a study of the distribution of

human population, and its structure and composition as well as variations in population dynamics, such as birth rates and death rates.

• Changes in these characteristics have greatly affected development patterns in local, national and global economies, cultures and politics

• Global population is estimated to reach around 10 billion by 2050

Population distribution• A global population of 7 billion was reached in August 2012• This distribution was very uneven

• Global Population distribution 2011• Source: NP page 128

• Generally 75% of the population lived within 1000km of the coastline

• Less than 10% of the population live in the southern hemisphere

High population density• Density = the number of people per area, usually per square

km

• The highest densities of people were located in the regions of Asia and Europe, especially South and East Asia, central and Western Europe as well as North East North America

Low population density• Occur over wider areas of Africa, Australia, Northern Europe

and Western and Northern Asia• Antarctica has no permanent population

Variation in density• National averages of population density may give a misleading

indication of distribution within a country.• E.g. China has an average density of 145 people per square

km. however, the eastern region of the country supports densities above 400 people.

• Shanghai, the regions major urban centre, with more than 16 million people has an average population density of 2660 per square km

• Some inner parts of Shanghai have averages in excess of 40000

• The western part has fewer than 10 people per square km

Variability

• melbournes population change