Factors influencing the distribution of population

Detail

Key terms

• Population distribution: how people are spread over the Earth's surface. It shows where people live.
• Population density: the number of people living in each unit of area, usually persons per sq km. Density is an important measure because it shows how crowded an area is [6].
• Uneven distribution: people are not spread evenly. Some areas are crowded and some are almost empty.
• The world population reached 8 billion on 15 November 2022 [2].
• It took 12 years to grow from 7 to 8 billion. It will take about 15 years to reach 9 billion, around 2037. This shows growth is slowing [2].

• India has only 2.4% of the world's surface area but 17.5% of its people. The USA has 7.2% of the area and only 4.5% of the people (Census 2011 figures) [6].

• People settle where land, water and climate can feed them, and later where jobs are. Three groups of factors decide this: geographical, economic, and social and cultural.

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I. Geographical factors

Geographical factors of population distribution: physical features of a place (water, landforms, climate, soil) that make it easy or hard for people to live there.

1. Availability of fresh water

• Fresh water is the most important single factor. People settle where it is easy to get.
• Water is needed for drinking, cooking, bathing, cattle, crops, industry and navigation (moving goods and people by boat).
• River valleys are among the most densely populated areas of the world.
• Ganga–Brahmaputra valley (India, Bangladesh)
• Nile valley (Egypt): almost all Egyptians live on a narrow strip of land along the river and its delta. The desert on both sides is nearly empty.
• Huang He and Chang Jiang (Yangtze) valleys (China)

• Indus valley (Pakistan)

• Early civilisations grew up in river valleys: the Indus, Nile, Tigris–Euphrates and Huang He.

2. Landforms

• Flat plains and gentle slopes draw people because:
• it is easy to farm them
• roads, railways and factories are cheap to build on them

• services such as markets, schools and hospitals can reach many people

• Mountains and hilly areas repel people (push them away). Slopes are steep, soil is thin, the climate is cold, and roads are hard to build.

Landform	Population	Example
Alluvial plain (plain made of soil laid down by rivers)	Very dense	Ganga plains: among the densest areas in the world
High mountains	Very sparse	Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alps
Rugged hills and plateaus	Sparse	North-east Indian hills

• India (Census 2011): Arunachal Pradesh is mostly rugged Himalayan terrain. It is the least densely populated state at 17 persons per sq km. Bihar lies on the Ganga plain and is the most densely populated major state at 1,102 persons per sq km [6].
• Census data shows that state densities differ because of climate, geophysical features (land shape and structure) and resources [6].

3. Climate

• Extreme climates are hard to live in:
• Very hot deserts: Sahara (North Africa), Arabian Desert, Thar (Rajasthan, India and Sindh, Pakistan)
• Very cold areas: Greenland, northern Siberia, northern Canada, Antarctica

• Very wet areas with heavy rainfall: the Amazon basin (Brazil) and the Congo basin (Central Africa). These are hot and humid all year, with thick rainforest and many diseases, so few people live there.

• Comfortable climates with little seasonal change attract people.

• Mediterranean lands were settled early in history because of their pleasant climate.
• Mediterranean climate: found at about 30°–45° N and S, on the western sides of continents. Summers are warm and dry, and winters are mild and wet.

• Examples: Southern Europe, California, central Chile, the south-west tip of South Africa and south-west Australia.

• How climate shapes settlement:

• Good temperature and enough rain → crops grow well → more food → more people.
• Too hot, too cold or too wet → crops fail or cannot be grown → few people.

4. Soils

• Fertile loamy soil (a mix of sand, silt and clay that holds water well and drains well) supports intensive agriculture, meaning many crops are grown each year on the same land. This lets one area feed many people.
• Alluvial soils in the Ganga plain and the deltas of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri support very dense rural populations.
• Areas of India with poor soils and few people:

Area	Soil problem	Result
Western Rajasthan (Thar Desert)	Sandy, dry soil that is low in humus (organic matter)	Very low density
Laterite uplands (parts of the Western Ghats, Odisha, Chota Nagpur, Meghalaya)	Heavy rain washes the nutrients out (leaching), so the soil is poor	Thin population
Hilly forest areas of the North-East	Thin soil on steep slopes	Sparse; mostly shifting cultivation

• See the note on soils-of-india.

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II. Economic factors

Economic factors of population distribution: jobs, industry and income opportunities that pull people to a place. These can be strong enough to overcome a poor physical setting.

1. Minerals

• How a mineral area fills with people:
• A mineral deposit is found → mining starts.
• Mining brings industries such as smelting and processing.

• Skilled and semi-skilled workers move in → towns grow, even in harsh areas.

• Katanga–Zambia copper belt (NCERT example): a copper belt in south-eastern DR Congo (Katanga) and northern Zambia (the Copperbelt) in Central Africa.

• Other mining-industrial clusters:

Cluster	Location	Resource base
Ruhr	Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia), along the Ruhr river, a tributary of the Rhine	Coal, which led to iron and steel
Pittsburgh	Pennsylvania, USA, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio river	Coal and iron, which led to steel
Chota Nagpur Plateau	Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, India	Coal (Damodar valley), iron ore and steel (Jamshedpur, Bokaro)

• Gulf oil towns: oil wealth in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait built crowded cities in very dry land. Their workforce is mostly migrant workers from South Asia and elsewhere. Here an economic factor beats a harsh climate.

2. Urbanisation

• Urbanisation: the growth in the share of a country's people living in towns and cities.
• Cities offer jobs, education, medical facilities, better transport and civic amenities (water supply, electricity, sanitation). These pull rural migrants from villages.
• Result: megacities (cities with more than 10 million people) keep growing. City life can still be hard because of high costs, crowding, slums and pollution.
• 55% of the world's people lived in urban areas when the population reached 8 billion in 2022. This is expected to rise to 70% by 2050 [3].

3. Industrialisation

• How an industrial belt fills with people:
• Factories open → factory workers arrive.
• Factories also need transport operators, shopkeepers, bankers, doctors and teachers → service jobs grow.

• More jobs → more migrants → the belt becomes densely populated.

• Kobe–Osaka region, Japan (NCERT example): an industrial belt on Osaka Bay, Honshu island, in the Kansai region of Japan.

• Other examples: the Ruhr, north-eastern USA, and the Mumbai–Pune and Ahmedabad–Vadodara belts in India.

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III. Social and cultural factors

Social and cultural factors of population distribution: religion, culture, peace or conflict, and government policy, which can draw people to a place or drive them out.

1. Religious and cultural significance (pull)

• Holy and cultural centres attract pilgrims, traders and permanent settlers.
• Varanasi: on the Ganga, Uttar Pradesh
• Mecca: Hejaz region, western Saudi Arabia
• Jerusalem: West Asia, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims

2. Social and political unrest (push)

• War, ethnic conflict and persecution drive people away. These people become refugees (people who flee to another country) or internally displaced persons (people who flee to another part of their own country).
• Examples: Syria (civil war), Sudan (armed conflict), Myanmar (the Rohingya crisis).

3. Government incentives

• Governments offer land, jobs, housing or tax benefits to make people settle in sparse areas, or to move people out of crowded areas.

Country	Policy	Aim
Brazil	The capital moved from Rio de Janeiro on the South Atlantic coast to Brasília on 21 April 1960. Brasília is a new, planned city about 960 km to the north-west. Its site was chosen in 1956. An interior capital was first proposed in 1789 and was written into the 1891 constitution [4].	To settle and develop Brazil's empty interior
Indonesia	Transmigration (transmigrasi): the government moved landless people from crowded Java to sparse islands such as Kalimantan. The programme ran mainly in the last quarter of the 20th century and ended in 2000 [5]. A new capital, Nusantara, is being built in East Kalimantan (Borneo) to replace crowded Jakarta.	To ease crowding on Java
China	Settlement of Han Chinese in Xinjiang in the north-west	To populate a sparse border region
India	Settlement schemes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands	To populate remote islands

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IV. How the role of each factor changed over time

Era	Main factors	Why
Before industrialisation (before about 1750)	Physical: water, flat land, climate, soil	Most people were farmers, so food decided where they could live
Industrial era (19th–20th century)	Economic: coal, minerals, factories	Jobs moved to coalfields and ports (Ruhr, Pittsburgh, Kobe–Osaka)
Today	Economic and political: cities, services, government policy, conflict	Technology (irrigation, air-conditioning, transport) reduces the limits set by nature, as in the Gulf cities and Brasília

• Physical factors still matter. Mountains, deserts and polar lands remain thinly peopled.
• About 70% of the people added between 7 and 8 billion were in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. These countries are expected to account for more than 90% of growth between 2022 and 2037 [2].

Prelims Hooks

• Katanga–Zambia copper belt: an example of minerals drawing people. It lies in south-eastern DR Congo and northern Zambia.
• Kobe–Osaka: an example of industrialisation drawing people. It is in Japan, not South Korea or China.
• Brasília became Brazil's capital on 21 April 1960, replacing Rio de Janeiro. This is a government incentive to settle the interior [4].
• Census 2011 density: India 382 persons per sq km (up from 325 in 2001). Highest: NCT of Delhi (11,297), then Chandigarh (9,252). Highest major state: Bihar (1,102), then West Bengal (1,029) and Kerala (859). Lowest state: Arunachal Pradesh (17) [6].
• Indonesia's transmigration moved people from Java to Kalimantan and other outer islands. It ended in 2000 [5].
• Trap: very heavy rainfall repels population. The Amazon and Congo basins are sparse even though they are wet and green.
• Mediterranean lands were settled early because of their pleasant climate. Their rain comes in winter, not summer.
• Three geographical factors in NCERT: water, landforms, climate (plus soils). Minerals, urbanisation and industrialisation are economic factors.
• World population reached 8 billion on 15 November 2022. 55% were urban, and this is projected to reach 70% by 2050 [2][3].

Mains Points

• Why some areas are densely populated: fresh water, fertile alluvial plains and a moderate climate (physical factors) combine with jobs, cities and industry (economic factors). Examples: the Ganga plain, the Nile valley, eastern China, the Ruhr and Kobe–Osaka. Bihar (1,102 per sq km) and Arunachal Pradesh (17 per sq km) show the contrast inside India (Census 2011) [6].
• Physical factors gave way to economic and political ones: before industrialisation, food supply decided where people lived. Today, mines, factories, megacities and state policy decide it. Technology lets people settle in harsh places such as the Gulf oil cities and the Copperbelt.
• Government action to redistribute people: Brasília (1960) [4], Indonesia's transmigration and Nusantara [5], and India's Andaman schemes. These reduce crowding and integrate border regions, but they can cause ethnic tension, forest loss and harm to indigenous communities.
• Push factors such as conflict (Syria, Sudan, Myanmar) create sudden refugee flows. These put pressure on host regions. This is a social and political factor that geography cannot predict.