Political Factors
Today, perhaps more than ever before,
economic hardship, political unrest and war
result in significant population movements.
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Events during the past decades, for example,
have created tens of millions of refugees.
Among the most notable events are the Persian
Gulf War; Civil wars in Democratic Republic of
Congo (Zaire), Ethiopia, Sudan and Chad;
ethnic reprisals and revolutions in Rwanda
and Sri Lanka, Military Coups in Haiti; the
dissolution of the USSR and the creation of 15
independent nations, and the fragmentation of
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia into several
republics based on ethnic differences; and
China�s impact on the Tibetan population, etc.
Besides, Political control and policies of
National Governments have also fostered
population growth, decline or migration.
To sum up, we can say that current
population patterns are dynamic and they
reflect both recent demographic trend, as well
as, those that have evolved over long period of
time. For example, agriculturally productive
valleys and deltas of the great rivers of China,
India and Southeast Asia have long supported
large populations. The dense urban population
of Western Europe and the North eastern
United States, on the other hand, emerged as
the result of the technological revolutions,
economic development and large scale
migration during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Push and pull factors have been
responsible for the migration of people from
rural to urban areas in developing countries
like, India and China. There are now more large
cities in developing countries than in developed
countries. Today, the most rapid population
growth is occurring in parts of Africa and Latin
America, where death rates have fallen sharply,
while birth rates remain fairly high.
Patterns of Population Distribution
The analysis of the pattern of population
distribution and density is fundamental to the
study of demographic characteristics of any
area. The term population distribution refers
to the way the people are spaced over the
earth�s surface. Population size of individual
countries provides a better understanding of
population trends and patterns, as a country
is the political and geographical unit, in which
decisions relating to population, environment
and resources are made. Ten most populous
countries of the world together make up nearly
60 per cent of the world�s population.
Six of these ten countries are in Asia and that
1 in every 5 persons in the world lives in China,
and 1 in 6 in India.
Population density, another measure to
analyse population distribution refers to a ratio
between population and land area in a
country. The arithmetic population density,
the number of people divided by the total land
area, is the simplest method to understand the
degree of concentration of population.
Although this method ignores differences in
population distribution within a country or a
region, it is still better suited to compare
population characteristics of different
countries. For example, in 2000, the United
States was the third most populous nation, but
it also had the third largest area, so its
population density was relatively low, about
28 persons per sq. km In contrast,
no individual country of Europe is among the
10 most populous countries of the world.
Germany with about 82 million people ranks
12. Yet, Europe excluding Russia, has 40
independent countries with a combined
population of 582 million, or more than twice
that of the USA, living in an area only half the
size of the United States. And, thus, Europe has
a population density of 104 persons per sq. km,
nearly four-times that of the United States.
Compared with simple arithmetic density,
physiological or nutritional density is a more
refined method of calculating man-land ratios.
It is a ratio between total population and total
cultivated area or cropland. In developing
countries where subsistence agriculture
remains the most important economic activity,
physiological density reflects the intensity of
agriculture. In nearly all the populous
developing countries in Asia � including India,
Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh � there
is less than one acre (0.4 hectare) of cropland
per person. To be exact, in India 1 hectare of
cropland supports 5 persons, in China, each
hectare of cropland supports 12 persons, while
in the USA it is only 1.5 persons per hectare.
In most of these agricultural countries,
virtually all the land, suitable for crops, is being
cultivated. Thus with population growth, more
and more people need to be supported by the
existing cropland. Since agricultural
productivity varies from place to place.
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AKHAND PRATAP SINGH
