Factors of population distribution
Topic: Population of India: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition"
Meaning
Factors of population distribution are the reasons people crowd into some places and avoid others. Physical factors are climate, terrain (the shape of the land) and water. Socio-economic and historical factors include early settled farming, the history of settlement, transport, industry and cities. People can also change the old pattern. Irrigation, mining and new roads or railways bring people into areas that were once thinly peopled. River plains and coasts stay crowded even where land and water are degraded, because people settled there early and transport grew there.
Example
The Indira Gandhi Canal brought irrigation to the dry west of Rajasthan, and population density rose there. In the same way, minerals and energy raised densities in Jharkhand, on the Chota Nagpur plateau.
Don't confuse with
- Distribution of population: this is the pattern itself, for example "UP has the most people". The factors are the causes behind that pattern.