Population Basics
What does population mean?
The total number of people living in a place.
What is population density?
The number of people living within a certain amount of land.
What does a choropleth map use to represent data?
Different colors or shades.
What symbol does a dot-density map use?
Dots.
You see a map with states colored different shades. What type of map could this be?
Choropleth map.
What does population distribution describe?
How people are spread out across an area.
What formula do we use to calculate population density?
Population ÷ land area = population density.
What part of the map explains what the different colors or shades mean?
The legend/key.
What does each dot represent?
A certain number of people or things, according to the legend.
You see hundreds of dots clustered around major cities. What type of map is this?
Dot-density map.
Name one natural resource that can cause people to settle in an area.
Water, fertile soil, or another useful natural resource.
A town has 1,000 people and covers 10 square miles. What is its population density?
100 people per square mile.
On a population-density choropleth map, what might a darker shade represent?
A higher population density, if the legend says darker means higher.
What does an area with many dots close together tell you?
There is a high concentration of whatever the dots represent.
A map's legend says:
Light = 0–50 people/sq. mile
Medium = 51–100
Dark = 101+
What information is this map showing?
Population density.
Why are populations often concentrated near rivers?
Rivers provide water, fertile land, transportation, and other resources.
City A has 5,000 people in 10 square miles. City B has 5,000 people in 50 square miles. Which has the higher population density?
City A.
True or false: A choropleth map can only show population.
False. It can show many types of data, such as income, unemployment, rainfall, or population density.
If 1 dot = 1,000 people and you see 8 dots, how many people are represented?
8,000 people.
A map has many dots along a river but very few dots in the desert. What can you conclude?
The population is more concentrated near the river.
Two places have the same population, but people are spread differently. Do they necessarily have the same population density?
No. Land area must also be considered.
Can a geographically small place have a higher population density than a much larger place? Explain.
Yes. If many people live in a small area, its population density can be very high.
A map colors each state according to the number of people per square mile. Is it a choropleth map, a population-density map, or both?
Both. Choropleth describes how the data is displayed, while population density describes what data is being shown.
Why might a geographer choose a dot-density map instead of a choropleth map?
A dot-density map can help show where people or things are concentrated within an area, rather than coloring the entire area the same way.
A map uses different colors for each state to show people per square mile. Explain two things we know about this map.
It is a choropleth map because it uses shaded areas, and it is showing population density because the data are people per unit of land.