Population density
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"In the days before Pasteur man's population was maintained approximately constant from generation to generation by a cybernetic system in which the principal feedback element at the upper limit was disease. The crowd-diseases — smallpox, cholera, typhoid, plague, etc. — are, by the ecologist, labeled "density-dependent factors," whose effectiveness in reducing population is a power function of the density of the population. No growth of population could get out of hand as long as the crowd-diseases were unconquered, which means that man did not have to sit in judgment on man, to decide who should have a cover at Nature’s feast and who should not." --Nature and Man's Fate (1965) by Garrett Hardin |
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Population density (in agriculture standing stock and standing crop) is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans. It is a key geographic term.
Other methods of measurement
While arithmetic density is the most common way of measuring population density, several other methods have been developed which aim to provide a more accurate measure of population density over a specific area.
- Arithmetic density: The total number of people / area of land (measured in km2 or sq miles).
- Physiological density: The total population / area of arable land.
- Agricultural density: The total rural population / area of arable land.
- Residential density : The number of people living in an urban area / area of residential land.
- Urban density : The number of people inhabiting an urban area / total area of urban land.
- Ecological optimum: The density of population which can be supported by the natural resources.
See also
- Demography
- Human geography
- Idealized population
- Optimum population
- Population bottleneck
- Population genetics
- Population health
- Population momentum
- Population pyramid
- Rural transport problem
- Small population size
- Distance sampling
Lists of city density and other lists
- List of cities by population density
- List of European cities proper by population density
- List of islands by population density
- List of countries by population density
- List of U.S. states by population density