I will first annotate global distribution of population. This can be seen on my map (fig 1) attached to this essay. There are clear areas shown on the map that have a highly dense population. With the northeast sea border of the USA being one of them, Europe another and The Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia being the other. The reasons for the highly dense populations in these areas are because of the physical factors: Relief, Climate, Vegetation, Soils and Water supplies. Relief will effect where people move in many ways. Most people will want to move in to an area that is flat, with lowland plains that are attractive. These will all make it easier for people to build on. To make factors like communication, and water supply easier to have. The climate will draw people into an area. More people will want to live where the rainfall id reliable and evenly distributed throughout the year; with no temperature extremes and a lengthy growing season (north-west Europe); where sunshine (the Costa del Sol); or snow (the Alps) is sufficient to attract Tourists; and areas with a monsoon climate (south-east Asia). With out amiable climates, there will be little reason to move into an area. Climate effects The Vegetation, which should generally be greener with no forests or deserts around. Soils are also a main feature when choosing to settle, deep humus-filled soils (the Paris Basin) and, especially, river-deposited silt (the Ganges and Nile deltas) both favor farming. This is a very important part when choosing where to live. The Primary centers of population; The northeast sea border of USA, Europe (particularly Northwest) and the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia are all highly populated because of having the above. Without most or all the above factors, few people would have been attracted to those countries. There are also a few secondary centers of population, with Brazil, South Africa, Southeast sea border of Australia and Western Sea border of USA all being quite densely inhabited. The reasons for this being that they have got some of the above physical factors to encourage people to move there.
Now annotating on a national scale I will look at Brazil. This shows clear reasons why people might move in to certain areas in the country. Looking at the map of Brazil (fig 2 attatched), I can see a relatively simple general pattern. Over 90 percent of Brazilians live in a discontinuous strip about 500 km wide, adjacent to the eastcoast. This strip accounts for less than 25 percent of the country’s total area. The population density declines very rapidly towards the northwest, where several remote areas are almost entirely lacking in permanent settlement. This is because of the Amazon rainforest. Although there is the river Amazon as a great water source, few people live along it. There is one exception to this, Manaus, which now is a free port, it was first built when there was a rubber boom at the beginning of 19 century. Another anomaly in Amazonia is the towns Carajas and Trombetas where minerals were found. As you move on into eastern Brazil, which are moderately populated with high, but irregular rainfall, and a long winter drought, low communications and federal investment still being insufficient keeping the population of this area down. Places like Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte and the East Coast having the highest population densities. Yet coastal areas have hot temperatures, poor soils, which combine to make low yield crops, where you cant rear animals, stopping much growth there. At Sao Paulo there is a fast rate in the growing population, this is because of the cooler climate, terra rossa soils and good access to water supply and good communications. Recently this city has received increasing numbers of tourists encouraging more growth in the city. The physical factors do not just effect where people live now, the human factors come in. Human Factors are political, because people cant move where the government don’t want them. The government instead will try to encourage populations to move in to new cities, such as Brasilia; by opening up ‘pioneer’ lands for development, as in Israel. Economic reasons, such as where the government are prepared to put their money into to build new towns, and restore areas so they are habitable also will effect national population distribution. Regions that can support high population densities and still produce jobs for residents will encourage people to move into an area. Lastly, for people to move into an area there has got to be good communications, such as roads, railways, airports, so that trade can be developed and that area can grow.
To summarise everything and to answer the question on what factors do you think are most important in determining the distribution of population at both global and national scale. I would say that from all the information above I can conclude that physical factors will effect where population is on a global scale, It is less particular, because the scale is huge. Whereas when you move in to a certain country or region, factors get more specific, and they will be both human and physical.
