Human Geography

Geography Human Aspects

Human Geography

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Humans communicate through speech, writing, or both. Different nationalities or ethnic groups typically have different languages or variations on particular languages; for example, Armenians speaking the Armenian language and British and Americans speaking distinctive varieties of the English language. One language may have various dialects, which may be seen by those who use them as languages in their own right. There are about 6,000 languages spoken worldwide, but 90% of these are in some danger of falling into disuse. More than half the world's population speaks one of just five languages - Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian, and Spanish.

The term language is also used for systems of communication with language like qualities, such as animal language (the way animals communicate), body language (gestures and expressions used to communicate ideas), sign language (gestures for the deaf for use as a lingua franca, as among Native Americans), and computer languages (such as BASIC and COBOL).

Language Acquisition

Language appears to develop in all children under normal circumstances, either as a unilingual or multilingual skill, crucially between the ages of one and five, and as a necessary interplay of innate and environmental factors. Any child can learn any language, under the appropriate conditions.

Language Families

The families into which the languages of the world are grouped include

§ the Indo-European (the largest, with subfamilies or branches from northern India to Ireland), (2 billion speakers)

§ the Hamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic (with a Hamitic branch in N Africa and a Semitic branch in W Asia and Africa, and containing Arabic, Hebrew, and Berber), (230 million)

§ the Finno-Ugric (including Finnish and Hungarian),

§ the Sino-Tibetan (including Chinese and Tibetan), (1,040 million)

§ the Malayo-Polynesian or Austronesian (including Malay and Maori), and the Uto-Aztecan (one of many Native American families, including Ute and Aztec or Nahuatl). (200 million)

Linguists estimate that there are about 6,000 distinct languages in the world. The number is uncertain because:

(1) it is not always easy to establish whether a speech form is a distinct language or a dialect of another language;

(2) some parts of the world remain incompletely explored (such as New Guinea); and

(3) the rate of language death is often unknown (for example, in Amazonia, where many undescribed Native American languages have died out).

It is also difficult to estimate the precise number of speakers of many languages, especially where communities mix elements from several languages elsewhere used separately (as in parts of India). Chinese (which may or may not be a single language) is spoken by around 1 billion people, English by about 350 million native speakers and at least the same number of non-natives, Spanish by 250 million, Hindi 200 million, Arabic 150 million, Russian 150 million, Portuguese 135 million, Japanese 120 million, German 100 million, French 70 million, Italian 60 million, Korean 60 million, Tamil 55 million, and Vietnamese 50 million.

One of the world's richest language banks is Papua New Guinea, where more than 100 languages were threatened with extinction in 1995. The trend is linked largely to the destruction of natural habitat by foreign commercial exploitation. In the Americas, 100 languages, each of which has fewer than 300 speakers, are all close to extinction. North America, which once had hundreds of languages, had only about 100 languages left in 1995.

Religions in world

Religious Following

Christianity is the most followed religion and others in the decreasing order of the following are Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism etc.

Religion	Members	Percentage
Christianity	2.1 billion	33.0%
Islam	1.3 billion	20.1
Hinduism	851 million	13.3
Buddhism	375 million	5.9
Sikhism	25 million	0.4
Judaism	15 million	0.2%
Baha'ism	7.5 million	0.1
Confucianism	6.4 million	0.1
Jainism	4.5 million	0.1
Shintoism	2.8 million	0.0

Latin religare `to bind´; bond of humans to God, Code of belief or philosophy that often involves the worship of a God or gods. Belief in a supernatural power is not essential (absent in, for example, Buddhism and Confucianism), but faithful adherence is usually considered to be rewarded; for example, by escape from human existence (Buddhism), by a future existence (Christianity, Islam), or by worldly benefit (Soka Gakkai Buddhism). Religions include:

1. Ancient and pantheist religions of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome;

2. Animist or polytheistic traditional central African religions, voodoo and related beliefs in Latin America and the Caribbean, traditional faiths of Native Americans, Maoris, Australian Aborigines, and Javanese;

3. Oriental Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto

4. Religions of a book´ Judaism, Christianity (the principal divisions are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant), and Islam (the principal divisions are Sunni and Shi'ite); combined derivation these include Baha'ism, the Unification church, and Mormonism.

Countries with the Largest Muslim Populations

1. Indonesia

2. Pakistan[1]

3. India

4. Bangladesh

5. Turkey

6. Iran

7. Egypt

8. Nigeria

9. Algeria

10. Morocco

	Judaism	Christianity	Islam	Hinduism	Buddhism
Founder	The Hebrew leader Abraham founded Judaism around 2000 B.C. Moses gave the Jews the Torah around 1250 B.C.	Jesus Christ, who was crucified around A.D. 30 in Jerusalem.	Muhammad, who was born in A.D. 570 at Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.	Hinduism has no founder. The oldest religion, it may date to prehistoric times.	Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, in the 4th or 5th century B.C. in India.
How Many Gods	One	One	One	Many (all gods and goddesses are considered different forms of one Supreme Being.)	None, but there are enlightened beings (Buddhas)
Holy Writings	The most important are the Torah, or the first five books of Moses. Others include Judaism's oral tradition, the written form of which is known as the Talmud.	The Bible is the main sacred text of Christianity.	The Koran is the sacred book of Islam.	The most ancient are the four Vedas.	The most important are the Tripitaka, the Mahayana Sutras, Tantra, and Zen texts.

MAJOR RACES in the world

Term sometimes applied to a physically distinctive group of people, on the basis of their difference from other groups in skin colour, head shape, hair type, nasal index and physique. Formerly, anthropologists divided the human race into three hypothetical racial groups: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Others postulated from 6 to 30 races. Scientific studies, however, have produced no proof of definite genetic racial divisions.

Isolation in Homo sapiens has never lasted long enough for the establishment of the isolating mechanisms that prevent interbreeding and lead to speciation. Humans do, however, follow many of the rules that apply to animals; for example, pigmentation is more intense in the humid tropics than in arid, cooler regions. Body extremities and body surface as a whole are reduced in animals in very cold climates; this principle is demonstrated by the Inuit. It has proved impossible to measure mental differences between groups in an objective way, and there is no acceptable scientific evidence to suggest that one race is superior to others. The attempt to categorize human types, as in South Africa for the purposes of segregation, is inevitably doomed by the absence of any straightforward distinction. Since humans can all interbreed to produce fertile offspring, they must all belong to the same genetic species.

Caucasoid

Former racial classification used for any of the light-skinned peoples; so named because the German anthropologist J F Blumenbach (1752-1840) theorized that they originated in the Caucasus.

Mongoloid

Former racial classification, based on physical features, used to describe people of E Asian and North American origin.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MAJOR RACES
Trait	Caucasoid	Mongoloid	Negroid
Skin colour	Pale reddish white to olive brown	Saffron to yellow brown, some reddish brown	Brown to brown- black, some yellow brown
Stature	Medium to tall	Medium tall to medium short	Tall to very short
Head form	Long to broad and short, medium high to very high	predominantly broad, height medium	Predominantly long, height low to medium
Face	Narrow to medium broad, tends to high, no prognathism	Medium broad to very broad, malars high and flat, tends to medium high	Medium broad to narrow, tends to medium high, strong prognathism
Hair	Head hair : colour, light blonde to dark brown; texture, fine to medium; form, straight to wavy Body hair : Moder- ate to profuse	Head hair : colour, brown to brown black; texture, coarse; form straight Body hair : Sparse	Head hair : colour brown black; texture -coarse; form, light curl to woolly or frizzly Body hair : Slight
Eye	Colour : light blue to dark brown; lateral eye-fold occasional	Colour : brown to dark brown, medial epicanthic fold very common	Colour : brown to brown black, vertical eye-fold common
Nose	Bridge : Usually high; form : narrow to medium broad	Bridge : Usually low to medium : form : medium broad	Bridge : Usually low; form medium broad to very broad
Body build	Linear to lateral; slender to rugged	Tends to be lateral; some linearity evident	Tends to be lateral and muscular
Blood group	More A than B	High in B	High in Rhe (cDe)

World Population [2]

Human beings are the Central theme in the subject matter of human geography. As of 2016 the world population stands at 7.4 billion.

Population Doubling Time

The population doubling time is the time it takes for the population to double.

2% growth rate - population doubling time would be about 35 years.

3% growth rate - population doubling time would be about 24 years.

4% growth rate - population doubling time would be about 17 years.

Components of Population Change

Life Expectancy - The average number of years a person from a specific country is expected to live.

Birth Rate - The number of (live) people born per 1000 of the population per year.

Death Rate - The number of people who die per 1000 of the population per year.

Natural Change - The change in the size of a population caused by the interrelationship between birth and death rates. If the birth rate exceeds the death rate then the population will increase. If the death rate exceeds the birth rate then the population will decrease.

Annual Population Change - The cumulative change to the size of a population after both natural change and

migration have been accounted for.

Doubling Time of World Population
Period	Population	Time in which population doubles
10,000 B.C.	5 million
1650 A.D.	500 million	1500 years
1850 A.D.	1000 million	200 years
1930 A.D.	2000 million	80 years
1975 A.D.	4000 million	45 years
2025 A.D.	8000 million	43 years

Uneven Distribution

More than half of the world’s people live in Asia which accounts for only one-fifth of the world’s land area. North, Central and South Africa together occupying more than a quarter of the land surface, have only one-seventh of the population. The African continent also accounts for a quarter of the land surface but has just over one-tenth of the world population. Europe, whose area is only one twenty-fifth of the total, has about one-ninth of the world’s people.

Country	Population	Land area (sq mi)	Density per sq mi
Macau S.A.R.	453,125	6	73,350
Monaco	32,543	0.8	42,143
Singapore	4,492,150	241	18,645
Hong Kong S.A.R.	6,940,432	382	18,176
Gibraltar	27,928	2	12,056
Gaza Strip	1,428,757	147	9,713
Bermuda	65,773	19	3,477
Malta	400,214	124	3,229
Maldives	359,008	116	3,099
Bahrain	698,585	239	2,923
Bangladesh	147,365,352	51,703	2,850

While the great majority of the land surface is sparsely or moderately populated, some limited areas are densely populated (Western Europe, the Indian subcontinent the plains and river valleys of China and north-Eastern U.S.A). Agriculture dominated (Nile valley of Egypt the river valleys and plains of mainland China the Indo-Gangetic plain and the island of Java in Indonesia) and Industry dominated (Western Europe, north-eastern U.S.A. and Japan) are densely populated areas.

Moderately populated areas: Tropical Savannas (Brazil Northern Australia, many parts of Africa) and Temperate Grassland are continental in location and lack of communications and remoteness have helped to keep the population small. Tropical savannas, Temperate Grassland-areas are in North America (the Prairies), Russia (the Steppes), and Argentina (the Pampas).

Both tropical and temperate coastland (eastern Europe, South-eastern Australia, central chile) are more densely populated than the continental interiors, partly because the climate is more favourable and partly because communications and markets are better.

Fertility and Mortality

Birth rate

Number of live births per year per 1,000 of the population.

Top 10 countries as per highest Birth Rates
1	Niger	46.12
2	Mali	45.53
3	Uganda	44.17
4	Zambia	42.46
5	Burkina Faso	42.42
6	Burundi	42.33
7	Malawi	41.80
8	Somalia	40.87
9	Angola	38.97
10	Afghanistan	38.84

Death rate

Number of deaths per year, 1,000 of the population.

Top 10 countries as per highest Death Rates
1	South Africa	17.49
2	Ukraine	15.72
3	Lesotho	14.91
4	Chad	14.56
5	Guinea Bissau	14.54
6	Bulgaria	14.30
7	Afghanistan	14.11
8	Central African Republic	13.91
9	Somalia	13.83
10	Russia	13.75

Leading causes of death around the world

Causes	Number of deaths
Ischaemic heart disease	7 million
Stroke	6 million
Lower respiratory infection	3.2 million
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	3 million
Diarroheal diseases	1.9 million
HIV/AIDS	1.6 million

As per WHO data for 2002-2012.

Life expectancy

The average age at which people die. List of countries with highest life expectancy.

Country	Life expectancy
Japan	84
Spain	83
Andorra	83
Singapore	83
Switzerland	83

Countries with lowest life expectancy

Country	Life expectancy
Sierra Leone	46
Lesotho	50
Central African Republic	51
Angola	52
Chad	52

Age

The size of population in lower age groups is large in those regions where birth rates are higher e.g. in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In those countries where birth rate is low but life expectancy is high, the number of children is lower but the number of older people is higher.

Sex Ratio

is measured in terms of number of males per thousand females. In Europe the number of females per thousand males is more. The same situation prevails in Africa too but the cause for high sex ratio in both the regions are different.

Literacy

The literacy is higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas throughout the word. Likewise the female literacy in rural areas in much lower than the female literacy in urban areas. In Muslim countries the female literacy is also low.

Major factors influencing literacy rate are, level of Economic development, level of urbanization, standard of living, the status of females and other groups in the society, the availability of educational facilities and the policies of the government.

Urban And Rural Population

Cities with highest urban population

1	Tokyo	Japan	34,900,000
2	Guangzhou	China	32,300,000
3	Shanghai	China	29,400,000
4	Jakarta	Indonesia	26,800,000
5	Seoul	Korea (South)	25,900,000
6	Delhi	India	25,100,000
7	Karachi	Pakistan	23,000,000
8	Mumbai	India	22,500,000
9	Manila	Philippines	22,400,000
10	Ciudad de México	Mexico	22,200,000
As per estimates of 2012

Generally, industrially developed countries have higher share of urban population as Industrialization and urbanization are positively correlated. There is preponderance of rural population in agricultural economies.

Rank Country Population

Most populous countries of World 2013 (in millions)
1	China	1367
2	India	1251
3	United States	321
4	Indonesia	255
5	Brazil	204
6	Pakistan	199
7	Nigeria	181
8	Bangladesh	168
9	Russia	142
10	Japan	126

Most Populous Cities of the World

Largest Cities of the World - (by metro population)

1. Tokyo, Japan (37,126,000)

2. Jakarta, Indonesia (26,063,000)

3. Seoul, South Korea (22,547,000)

4. Delhi, India (22,242,000)

5. Shanghai, China (20,860,000)

6. Manila, Philippines (20,767,000)

7. Karachi, Pakistan (20,711,000)

8. New York, USA (20,464,000)

9. Sao Paulo, Brazil (20,186,000)

10. Mexico City, Mexico (19,463,000)

As per estimates of 2012

MAJOR RIVERSIDE CITIES
City	River	Country
Alexandria	Nile	Egypt
Amsterdam	Amstel	Netherland
Antwerp	Scheldt	Belgium
Ankara	Kizil	Ghana
Bangkok	Menam	Thailand
Belgrade	Danube	Yugoslavia
Berlin	Spree	Germany
Bonn	Rhine	Germany
Bristol	Avon	England
Budapest	Danube	Hungary
Cairo	Nile	Egypt
Canton	Canton	China
Chittagong	Karnaphuli	Bangladesh
Chung King	Yangtze kiang	China
Cologne	Rhine	Germany
Glasgow	Clyde	Scotland
Hull	Humber	England
Hamburg	Elbe	Germany
Karachi	Indus	Pakistan
Khartoum	Blue & White Nile	Sudan
Lahore	Ravi	Pakistan
Lisbon	Tagus	Portugal
Liverpool	Mersey	England
Montreal	Ottawa	Canada
Moscow	Moskova	Russia
Nanking	Yangtze kiang	China
New	Mississippi	USA
Orleans	Hudson	USA New York
Paris	Seine	France
Philadelphia	Delaware	USA
Quebec	St. Lawrence	Canada
Rangoon	Irrawaddy	Burma
Rome	Tiber	Italy
Shanghai	Yangtze kiang	China
Tokyo	Sumida	Japan
Vienna	Danube	Austria
Warsaw	Vistula	Poland
Washington	Potomac	USA

[1] Pakistan is the second-most populous Muslim-majority country and also has the second-largest Shi'a population in the world. About 95% of the Pakistanis are Muslim, out of total Muslim population nearly 70% to 75% are Sunni, 20% to 30% are Shi'a and 2.3% are Ahmadis, as well as several Sufi communities

[2] Students must reconcile the given data with latest one.