Population density  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"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

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

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


Lists of city density and other lists





Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Population density" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools