name two geographical and economic factors affecting population density?
Answers
Answer: The main factors determining population distribution are: climate, landforms, topography, soil, energy
and mineral resources, accessibility like distance from the sea coast, natural harbors, navigable rivers or
canals, cultural factors, political boundaries, controls on migration and trade, government policies, types
of economic activities, technology including the type of farming and transportation facilities, social
organization and but not the least, demographic factors like changes in natural increase and migration.
Adverse physical conditions and lack of sufficient opportunities for means of livelihood have been
mainly responsible for discouraging inhabitation in certain areas. Climatic conditions are perhaps the
most important of all the geographic influences on population distribution. Apart from physical factors
several social, demographic, economic, political, and historical factors affect population distribution.
I,n the case of Cambodia, civil unrest in the past had forced a large number of people to migrate from
one province to another. Though a majority of the population is engaged in agriculture and rarely shift
their residence in normal times, there have been movements of the population mainly for economic reasons.
There is a clear pattern in the distribution of human settlements in Cambodia. For instance the majority
of the inhabitants of the country are settled in fairly permanent villages near the major watercourses in
the Tonle Sap Basin-Mekong Lowlands region. The highland tribes in Cambodia are found mostly in the
northeastern provinces of Ratanak Kiri, Stung Treng, Mondul Kiri, and Kratie. They mainly live in
scattered temporary villages that are abandoned when the cultivated land in the vicinity is exhausted.
These villages have only a few hundred inhabitants. Cham people who are Muslims engaged mostly in
fishing and growing vegetables usually occupy an entire village. These villages are mostly located on
or near the banks of a river or channel.
And areas with lack of resources have less