Discuss the relative importance of Human and Physical factors in controlling population distribution?

The human factor of a sparsely populated area is the lack of transport, airports, roads and railway, the reason for this is because the land is not flat and there are obstructions like mountains. Places that are less developed have extensive farming that takes a lot of space and supports fewer people. Sparsely populated places are where the government or big business fail to invest in and causes them not to have any potential for people and then the economy fails to impress other business economically or socially. Other things such as wars and racial problems that occur for example South Africa as industry was growing there to its climax until the black Africans began attacking the white industry and damaging the industry so they lost a lot of business and companies either moved on or went bankrupt.  

The human factor of densely populated areas is basically the opposite of a sparsely populated area as to have a densely populated area it has to have a large electrical supply, cheap labour and lots services which all attract workers and industry. Transport also has to be constructible with no major obstructions as all towns and industry sites need an easy and well-organised form of transport. Decisions that affect the distribution and control of the population is creating new shopping centre’s like ‘Blue Water’, which affected a lot of people in that particular area as new industries have entered the region which brought jobs and people to an area which was waste land.

All these have to be considered when discussing the control of the population distribution.

Physical factors like gold attracted a lot of people to Africa and Brazil and that caused industry such as jewellers to open up factories and small settlements near the coasts for easy exports and imports and other industry. In Brazil they have attracted new people and industry by opening a new city to spread out the population, so this human influence to distribute the population in Brazil and give offers for people to move with new job opportunities and education for children was all away of trying to get people to stop moving to the main old cities like Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. There was also a physical problem in Brazil, water supply was the main problem which caused the over populated problem of these places as they were near the coasts which helped industry and water supply for all the other things, there is rivers in Brazil but mainly in the Amazon where the government knew people would not confide in them and move there life’s there, so they put Brasilia in one of the only places that had a water supply and was already moderately populated. This helps to control the distribution. To control the population things have been made like visas so that not every one moves to a particular place and industry being asked to go world wide and workers move to new and spaced out countries which controls the population and industries like this as cheap labour and space to extend there industry.

        In the past population was distributed other ways as the water supply was the only way of transport of the merchandise so physical was slightly more important. Hilltops were seen as the best places to build castles for defensive reasons and even meander where used for protection. The markets were made for merchants near these rivers as well so the human and physical aspects affected the distribution of the population.

        Both Human and Physical factors have a relative importance in controlling the population distribution, supplies like coal, oil and water supply are all physical factors and then there are human factors like investments from government and companies and opportunities for work and education in a certain area.