Human and Population Geography
Human and population geography examines where people live, how populations change and how migration and settlement reshape regions. The exam expects definitions, simple calculations and interpretation of Odisha and India patterns.
Core rules and concepts
- Population density = total population ÷ land area, usually persons per square kilometre. It says nothing directly about wealth or resource use.
- Natural increase = births minus deaths. Actual growth also includes net migration. A demographic transition moves from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates through intermediate stages.
- Sex ratio is females per 1,000 males. Literacy rate is literate persons aged seven and above as a percentage of the population aged seven and above.
- Push factors include drought, unemployment and displacement; pull factors include jobs, education and health services. Settlement may be compact, dispersed or linear.
- Census 2011 recorded Odisha at about 41.97 million people, density 270 per km², sex ratio 979 and literacy about 72.9 per cent; most people remained rural.
Worked example
A district has 1,200,000 people and 4,000 km². Density = 1,200,000 ÷ 4,000 = 300 persons per km². If it has 540,000 females and 560,000 males, sex ratio = (540,000 ÷ 560,000) × 1,000 = 964 females per 1,000 males. Show the denominator clearly; reversing it is a common error.
Traps that cost marks
- Defining sex ratio as males per 1,000 females.
- Using cultivated area instead of total area for population density without saying so.
- Confusing natural increase with total growth.
- Treating all migration as voluntary; drought and displacement can force it.