Population and Settlement Geography
What this domain tests
Population and settlement geography tests census concepts, population distribution and density, growth, sex ratio, literacy, migration, urbanisation and settlement types and hierarchies. Expect definitions, calculations and Indian and Andhra Pradesh examples.
Core rules
- Census terms: population, density (persons per km²), sex ratio (females per 1,000 males), literacy rate (age 7+), urban population. Physiological density divides population by cultivated area.
- India's 2011 population was about 1.21 billion, density 382/km² and sex ratio 943. Andhra Pradesh (residual state) had about 49.4 million people; density near 300/km² and sex ratio close to 997.
- Demographic transition: high birth and death rates give way to low rates through declining death rates first. India's growth was stagnant to 1921, steady to 1951, rapid to 1981, then slowing.
- Settlements: rural (compact, dispersed, linear) and urban. Site factors include water, relief and defence; situation factors include routes and resources. Central place theory (Christaller) and the rank-size rule describe hierarchies.
Worked example
A district has 1.2 million people and 4,000 km². Arithmetic density = 1,200,000 ÷ 4,000 = 300 persons/km². If only 2,000 km² is cultivated, physiological density = 1,200,000 ÷ 2,000 = 600 persons/km². The second figure better measures pressure on farmland.
Traps
Reversing sex ratio (it is females per 1,000 males); treating arithmetic and physiological density as identical; using CAGR without compounding; assuming all urban growth is natural increase rather than migration and reclassification.