All over the world people live on different continents and in different countries. They are called the 'population' of a country.
People do not always stay in one place. They can move to another town, city or country. This is called 'migration'.
- Name the 7 continents on earth.
- Choose any 5 countries and find out what is the population of that country. Also choose 5 towns or cities and find out the amount of people living there.
- Do research and determine what is the area/town with the least amount of people and the place with the highest population in your country.
You have now established that people do not all live in one area and the population is spread out - some areas are more 'densely' populated than others.
In which area people live will be determined by different things (factors)
- what the temperature is like - people like to live in areas where the temperatures are not to extreme
- is the soil fertile or not - there are only a few people living in deserts, because they can not plant crops there
- where they work and where they can live without travelling too far to their work
- areas with a lot of mountains will have less people because it is difficult to build a house there or plant crops
- places where there are enough transport and transport links will have more people living there
- places that are far away from the city will have less people
- water and other resources will attract more people to live close by
The population grows
Every year there are more people on earth, one of the main reason why our resources are getting depleted.
- What is the meaning of 'depleted'?
- Why is is a bad thing that our resources are getting less and less?
There are a few reasons why the populations will grow
- more babies are born
- there is better health care and people tend to get older before they die
- people from other places or countries move to that specific area
- Have a look at the following video on 'population structure' and answer the questions
- What is population structure?
- What is used to illustrate that?
- Why are there less people the higher the age goes on the pyramid?
- What is the meaning of 'life expectancy' and 'famine'.
- What can influence the life expectancy?
- Find a few pictures of different population pyramids and see if you can explain the information you can read from the chart.
People move from one place to another
There are certain reasons why people will emigrate (move out) of a country and immigrate (move in to) another country.
Certain things will pull you towards a place or it will push you away from a specific area. These are called the 'push and pull factors'
- Watch the video and compile your own list of which factors will be responsible to get people to come to that area and which ones to get them to leave.
