People want to settle in areas where food, water and land are easily available. Although, one single factor may not determine population distribution but collectively they play a deciding role in it. All these factors can be grouped into physical factors and economic factors.
FACTORS AFFECTING DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION :-
1. Physical Factors
Physical factors include relief, climate, soil, water and vegetation.
Relief: High mountains, rugged terrain and rocky plateau restrict human settlements. Here, the transportation is very difficult and the living conditions are not very favorable. The mountain ranges of Andes, Himalayas, Plateau and Rockies of Tibet are sparsely populated.
On the other hand, plain areas of the world are most favorable places for human habitation where transportation facilities are good and rivers are navigable. In the fertile lowlands of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra in India, Hwang Ho in China, Nile in Egypt, Mississippi in USA, Tigris in Iraq and several other places, a large concentration of population is found. Plains are also good for agricultural and industrial activity in the world and important cities of the world have been built on plains.
Climate: Climate is one of the most important factors affecting the distribution of population. People prefer to live in regions where temperature and rainfall are moderate. Excessive heat, cold, dryness or wetness cause discomfort. Hot and humid areas of equatorial region, cold desert of Siberia, hot desert of Sahara are the areas which are sparsely populated. On the other hand, favorable climatic conditions in the monsoon regions of India and Bangladesh attract large concentration of population.
Soil and water: Land, where the soil is fertile and there is adequate water supply, has high concentration of population. Water resources are very limited in deserts, so the population is sparse.
Vegetation: Equatorial forests are dense and inaccessible as compared to monsoon and coniferous forests, which are accessible.
2. Economic Factors
Economic factors include availability of minerals, location of industries, developed means of transport and communication and government policies.
Minerals: Mineral deposits play a dominant role in population distribution. The presence of coal and iron ore in different parts of the world has attracted a huge population in these areas because these are key minerals required for the iron and steel industry. Hot and dry areas of Australian deserts, Saudi Arabia and South Africa have attracted large groups of migrants because of the availability of petroleum. Similarly, the hilly areas of Jharkhand have rich mineral resources attracting large industrial settlements.
Industries: Development of industries in any region has a very favourable impact on employment opportunities. An industrial labourer earns a higher wage than an agricultural labourer. Industrial hubs attract people from far off places. The eastern part of the USA, peninsular plateau in India and Western Europe are some of the common examples which have a larger concentration of population mainly because they are highly industrialised.
Developed means of transport: People have settled down in distant places due to the development of an efficient system of transport network. The economic resources of a region coupled with a good network of transport increases the mobility of people and attracts large human settlements.
Discriminatory Government Policies: Political unrest in a region or discriminatory policies of a he government against a group of people has made millions of refugees. In recent years, the Persian Gulf War, ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka, the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 independent nations are some of the examples which show how political unrest can lead to migration and redistribution of population.
GROWTH OF POPULATION
Population is always in a state of flux. The net change in population between two fixed periods of time expressed in percentage is called the growth rate of population. The growth rate may be negative, if the population declines; and positive, if it increases during a given time period.
The growth of population is affected by the birth rate, death rate and by large scale migration. It increases when the birth rate is more than the death rate or when the in-migration is more than the out-migration.
Do You Know? :-
Birth rate is the number of births per thousand persons in a specific time and death rate is the number of deaths per thousand persons in a specific time period.
Every sixth person on the earth is an Indian.
The world population was around 1.5 billion in the year 1900, which has grown to the present population of 7.0 billion in the year 2011. This suggests that the growth rate has been rising up and the population has been continuously increasing rapidly.
The growth in population of India has rapidly increased during the last century. In particular, this gone up from about 400 million in 1961 to over a billion people in the year, 2011. In these 50 years, the country has added more than 700 million people which makes the growth rate alarming. It is estimated that at this rate of growth in population, the country will almost double its population in next 36 years.
