AP Human Geography Unit 2: Population and Migration

Population distribution

The pattern of where people live across the globe or a specific region

Arithmetic population density

The total number of people divided by the total land area

Physiological population density

The number of people per unit of area of arable (farmable) land

Agricultural population density

The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of arable land

Carrying capacity

The maximum number of people an environment can support without environmental degradation

Urban services

Facilities like water, electricity, and transport provided to people in cities

Population pyramids

A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and se—x

Demographics

Statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it

Population doubling time

The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase

Demographic transition model

A process with several stages that tracks a country’s transition from high birth/death rates to low birth/death rates

Thomas Malthus

An economist who argued that population growth would eventually outpace food production

Epidemiologic transition model

Focuses on distinctive health threats/causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition

Pronatalist policies

Government policies that encourage citizens to have more children

Antinatalist policies

Government policies that discourage citizens from having many children (e.g., China’s old One Child Policy)

Push factors

Factors that induce people to leave old residences (e.g., war, poverty)

Pull factors

Factors that induce people to move to a new location (e.g., jobs, safety)

Forced migration

Permanent movement, compelled by cultural or environmental factors

Refugees

People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution

Internally displaced people (IDP)

Someone who has been forced to migrate like a refugee but has not crossed an international border

Asylum

Protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee

Voluntary migration

Permanent movement undertaken by choice

Transnational migration

A form of population movement in which a person regularly moves between two or more countries

Step migration

Migration to a distinct destination that occurs in stages (e.g., farm to village to city)

Chain migration

Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there

Great Migration

The movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States gto the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West (1916-1970)

Atlantic Slave Trade

The forced migration of Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas

Remittances

Money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries

Gravity model

A model which holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel with increasing distance from its origin

Distance decay

The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin

Census

A complete enumeration (counting) of a population

Quantitative Data

Data that can be measured and recorded using numbers

Qualitative Data

Descriptive data that is often collected through interviews or observations