UNIT 1

GEOGRAPHY AND
HISTORY:
Population

BY

Colegio SEK Atlántico

Individuals and Societies
Víctor Dios
 CONTENTS

Population, distribution and future expectations 2

Population structure and rates 3

Demographic models 4

Europe and Spain’s population 5

Societies and migrations 6

1
 POPULATION

It is the number of people living in a territory or place in a certain moment. In this

moment there are around 7.300 m. humans, and the most populated continent in Asia
with about 60% of it.
DISTRIBUTION AND FUTURE EXPECTATIONS
World’s population is distributed in a very uneven way, so we can find some parts that
are very densely populated (overpopulated) and others with almost non-existing
population (demographic deserts).
High density areas: are those adapted to human life because of its climate, resources or
environment. We can find a lot of population in fertile zones (Nile, China, Southeast
Asia, etc.). Regions full of mining or energy resources (specially the last ones) tend to
be attractive for people to settle (parts of USA, Russia, China, India or certain countries
in Africa and Southamerica like Chile or Southafrica). Finally, population concentrates
in areas with many industrial activity or services (USA coasts, Japan, UE, coast of
Brazil, Eastern China, etc.) because they offer job opportunities, good living conditions
and are usually highly urbanized.

Low
density
areas: there
living
conditions
are difficult
for human
life. Usually
areas with
extreme
climates
(both cold
and hot)
like deserts, polar zones, etc. It is hard to settle also in tropical, equatorial or forest
zones because its vegetation makes it difficult to stablish big cities. Finally, mountains
are difficult too, since the relief and climate make it hard for humans to adapt.
In the future, Asia will still be the most populated in the world with over half of its
global population, but India will overcome China soon. Europe is already losing
population and will continue in the next century. Africa, lead by Nigeria, is the country
where population will grow faster in the next decades. Finally, Northamerica will follow
Europe’s path while Southamericas growth will continue until the end of this century.

2
 POPULATION STRUCTURE AND RATES

To classify the population we tend to look to different characteristics, such as age

(young 0-14, adults 15-64, old 65 or more), sex (men and women) or economic activity
(agriculture, industry or services). And we use this information to represent the
population of a place using graphs called population pyramids.
To analyze the characteristics of this pyramids we need to know certain rates of that
population, mainly:
Birth rate: is the number of birth in a population expressed per mille (‰). Certain
factors make it increases (children as life insurance, nonexistent contracepting methods,
high child death rate, children to work, religion influence, etc.) or decreases (children
are expensive, no need of children to work, working women, difficulty in combining
work and family life, public pension system, etc.).
Death rate: is the number of deaths in a population expressed per mille (‰). Certain
factors make it increase (wars, epidemics, lack of medicines or hygiene methods) or
decrease (vaccines, medicines, public healthcare system, better diet, etc.)
Natural growth: it is the difference between the number of births and the number of
deaths and show if the population increases (more births than deaths), decreases (more
deaths than births) or is stable (more or less the same in both rates).
Highly developed countries have a long life expectancy and a very low natural growth
(even a decreasing population), ageing population. Meanwhile, poor countries have a
low expectancy life and a high natural growth, although it depends on the continent.
DEMOGRAPHIC MODELS

3
 Throughout History population has had three different models:
Old demographic model: high birth rates (children as life insurance, non existing
contracepting methods, high child death rate, children to work, religion influence, etc.)
and high death rates (wars, epidemics, lack of medicines or hygiene methods), low life
expectancy and low natural growth. Typical from non-industrialized countries or from
before the Industrial Revolution.
Demographic transition model: is divided into two phases. In the first phase birth rate
remains high while death rates decrease a lot, because of improved nutrition, medicine
and hygiene, producing an extremely high natural growth (population explosion). In the
second phase birth rate starts decreasing because families have less children, so natural
growth slows down. Typical from developing countries.
Modern demographic model: birth rates is extremely low (children are expensive, no
need of children to work, working women, difficulty in combining work and family life,
public pension system, etc.) and death rates are also very low with a high life
expectancy and ageing population. This causes a low natural growth, even a decreasing
population. Typical from developed countries.

EUROPE
ANDSPAIN’S POPULATION

EUROPEAN POPULATION

4
 Europe has around 738 m. Europeans, distributed unequally because they are mainly
concentrated in a line from Southern England to Northern Italy, while there are parts of
the North and in the mountains with very little density.
This population is stagnant or even decreasing because of its low birth rates and low
death rates (because Europe is a developed continent with all the problems we already
mentioned) making its population old although it is partly compensated thanks to
immigration (mainly from Africa and Asia).
In the future we expect Europe to lose up to 15% of its present population.
SPANISH POPULATION

Spain’s population is around 46.5 m., this leaves it as a not

very populated country compared with the world, but in
European context is the 5th most populated.
This population, like in the rest of the world is not equally
distributed, since there are areas very densely populated,
like the Mediterranean coast (Catalunya, Valencia and
Andalucía) and Madrid, while other areas are
demographic deserts (both Castillas, Aragón,
Extremadura, etc.). Inside the Comunidades Autónomas,
people tend to live more in the capital cities and less in the
rural areas.
STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION
Spain, as a developed country shares the same situation as the rest of Europe, meaning
that its population is ageing and decreasing, only being compensated recently by
immigration. Births are low and life expectancy is one of the highest in the world.
RURAL AND URBAN AREAS
Villages with less than 10.000 inhabitants are considered rural or semi-urban. These
villages are isolated, both in dispersed settlements (small houses near a central location)
and concentrated settlements (populations surrounded by rainfed crop fields). Urban
settlements have more than 10.000 inhabitants and are both towns and small cities
(Vilagarcía de Arousa, Santiago, Pontevedra etc.) and large cities (Coruña, Vigo,
Madrid, Bilbo, Barcelona, etc.).

SOCIETIES AND MIGRATIONS

SOCIETIES

5
 Characteristics (cultural, knowledge, political systems, economy,
etc.) and common objectives of the the different groups of
people. They are continuously evolving from:
-Traditional societies: mainly rural, pre-industrial, usually with
authoritarian governments and strong religious codes.
-Industrial societies: based on
capitalism, the main activity is no
longer agriculture but industries,
population moves to the cities, the most
powerful group is bourgeoisie (owners
of factories and business) and their
system is usually based on democracy.
-Post-industrial societies: people lives mainly in huge cities, their
activity is based on services (information, knowledge, research, etc.).

MIGRATIONS
Migration is the shift of population from one place to another involving a change of
residence. The person who leaves a place is an emigrant and when that person arrives
to another place it is known as immigrant.
There are several reasons that explain migrations:
Economy: people leave their homelands to find better living conditions (either to find a
job or to find a better one, better livings standards, etc.).
Social: the causes are very varied, from wars (Syria, Afganistan, etc.) and epidemics to
prosecution of minorities (jews prosecuted by the Nazis, homosexuals prosecuted by
people or governments, racial minorities, etc.).
Natural: usually dew to natural disasters, such as climate change, floods, volcano
eruptions, droughts, etc.
Effects of migration:
Economic effects: migrations have generally positive effects on the hosting country
(they pay taxes, increase the disponibility of workers, can work on many various types
of jobs, etc.), but not so positive on the emitting ones because they lose population,
force of labour, innovation, etc.
Social effects: immigrants help ageing population because they usually have more
children, increasing birth rate and population. Sometimes hosting societies tend to
isolate them creating neighborhoods where integration is difficult.
Cultural effects: immigrants offer cultural diversity, different points of view to solve
complex problems and enrich the societies making them cosmopolitan and openminded.
Immigrant have it difficult because they have to integrate in their new societies, but
sometimes we confuse integration with assimilation. People want to preserve their
cultural characteristics even though they live in a new country and both things have to
reconcile.
MIGRATION FLOWS

6
 In the following map we can see that there are areas of the world the emit migrants
(Africa, Southamerica, parts of Asia, eastern Europe) while others tend to receive them
(western Europe, Northamerica, Gulf States and Australia/New Zealand).

SPAIN: EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION

Spain is a very particular country since traditionally it has always been a country where
its population tend to emigrate. Living standards were never particularly good and the
discovery of America offered opportunities impossible to find here, so the population
travelled there until the 19th century, when America was substituted by Northern Europe
(France, Switzerland, Germany, etc.). In the present day, many young people still take
this way to other countries (mainly EU, UK and USA) to find a job or a better one since
our working conditions are not competitive. Finally, Spanish people immigrate inside
the country from rural areas (Andalucía, Extremadura, Castillas, etc.) to the industrial or
service ones (Cataluña, Euskadi, Madrid, the Mediterranean coasts and the islands).
Despite this situation, since Spain entered in the EU, with the improvement of the
standards of living at the same time Spanish people emigrated, the country received an
important number of immigrants from Morocco, eastern Europe and Southamerica to
perform low quality jobs and from UK, Germany, Nordic countries, etc. to live in the
mediterranean coast when they retire. Still Spain is not a country with a huge percentage
of immigration (around 10%).