What is population? Population is simply the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region. Seems very simple but population is very complicated. There is no way to specifically say what the exact population at any given moment. There are many factors that play into the population.
Some of those factors are the Crude Birth Rate(CBR) and the Crude Death Rate(CDR). The CBR is the number of live births per one thousand people, and the CDR is the number of deaths per one thousand people. A low CBR would be 10-20 births per 1,000 people, a high CBR would be 20-40 births per 1,000 people, and the average is about 20. A low CDR is less than 7 deaths per 1,000 people, a high CDR is greater than 15, and the average in 2009 was about 8.5. The death rate and the birth rate clearly effect the population. Different areas have different rates in both. If there is a high birth rate, and a low death rate, that specific population will be growing. If there is a low birth and high death,that population will not be growing. If there is a high/low death, and a high/low birth, that population will essentially be equaling out with a very slow population growth. The rates are dependent on location, technology, environment, and many other factors.
Population is very hard to measure to an exact number. The CDR and CBR are just a few of the factors that play into the role of population. Population is forever changing.
Fouberg, Murphy, de Blij. Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture. 10th ed. Wiley, 2012. Print
This is an excellent illustration of how something that is forever changing is calculated. It's common knowledge that population statistics are never exact. I never knew the way in which they were determined though. You also did a great job of synthesizing these concepts and explaining them in a logical way. Your concluding paragraph is a nice springboard for future blog entries as well.
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