Physical or economic – which factor drives the population pattern.

“Economic characteristics of an area exert a much more direct effect on its population pattern than do physical characteristics.” Explain with examples. (200 Words)

Human population can overcome any difficulty with respect to the physical characteristics of a location, but overcoming natural difficulty has economic, ecological and cultural costs associated with it.

In past, dependence on nature for livelihood interlocked economic characteristics with the physical characteristics of an area. But industrialisation, IT revolution and globalisation has divorced economic interest from the physical characteristics of location.

Economic profile is very much in sync with the population profile of the locations. Economic activity in areas closely relates to spatial distribution, age profile, and demographic transition phase of the area.

Where economic activity is uniformly distributed, population is uniformly distributed. For example, rural countryside mostly dependent on agriculture is uniformly distributed for a given soil profile.

Where the economic resources are concentrated, population will be clustered around that urban centre. population profile of migrated people tend to be younger. And great inflow and outflow of population will be witnessed. Delhi NCR region, Mumbai region etc are such examples.

Physical characteristics no doubt affects the population patterns, but their effect is more indirect. Type of sustainable economic activity, kind of industrial activity, availability of essential utilities like water, all affect the population and economic activity on the whole. Textile clusters, cash crop locations, population density etc vary with the kind of physical charateristics an area has.

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