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Physiological density is a good indicator of the The Consequences of
pressure that a country’s population exerts on its agri-
culture land. In the United States, 1 square mile (640 Population Distribution
acres) of arable land needs to support only 550 people, Population distribution has important economic, polit-
while arable land in Japan and Egypt needs to support ical, and environmental implications. It directly affects
more than 13 and 16 times more people, respectively. labor supply, infrastructure development, national
It is no wonder that Japan and Egypt cannot produce security and defense, human well-being, and human
enough food to feed their populations.
vulnerability to disease and natural disasters.

Agricultural Density Economic Development

Agricultural density, or the number of farmers per By affecting the demands for goods and services in a
unit of arable land, measures the labor intensiveness of particular place, population distribution and density
a country’s agriculture. We calculate agricultural den- directly influence the decisions of governments and pri-
sity by dividing a country’s total farm population by vate businesses. The government uses population dis-
the total area of its arable land. The higher the num- tribution to plan public projects, such as roads, schools,
ber, the more labor intensive a country’s agriculture parks, and firehouses. Using the same information,
is. In developing countries, agriculture relies mostly on private developers decide where to build new hous-
muscle power and simple tools, and it employs a large ing, restaurants, shopping centers, and grocery stores.
number of people. Hence their agriculture density is Information about population helps companies deter-
usually high. For example, India has traditionally been mine whether a place has a large enough market for
a country of small farmers. There were 272.82 million their products or services and a large pool of workers
agricultural workers in 2015 and 616,605 square to draw from. For example, in parts of your city that
miles of arable land. Hence India’s agricultural den- have been growing, you may have noticed new coffee
sity was 442 farmers per square mile, or 171 farmers shops, restaurants, and other businesses. At the same
per square kilometer. The highly mechanized nature of time, businesses are closing down in places that are los-
agriculture in developed countries such as the United ing population, such as many small towns in the Great
States and Canada means a typical farmer can farm Plains of the United States.
hundreds of acres of land, so only a small number of High population density also conveys many signif-
people are needed to farm the land. Agriculture den- icant economic benefits, including the development of
sity in those countries is therefore very low. Accord- infrastructure, or as you learned in Module 0, the basic
ing to its 2012 agriculture census, the United States physical and organizational structures needed for the
had 3.18 million farmers and 587,889 square miles of operation of a society. It is much more cost effective to
arable land, which means an agricultural density of build roads, railroads, bridges, airports, and commu-
just over 5 farmers per square mile or about 2 farmers nication networks in densely populated areas than in
per square kilometer. sparsely populated areas. Likewise, providing essential
It is worth noting that a high arithmetic or physio-
logical density does not necessarily indicate high agri- services such as schools, hospitals, and public utilities
to a large number of people in one place reduces the
cultural density. Earlier, we noted the high population cost per person. Urban areas are usually more energy
and physiological densities in Japan, but because it efficient — that is, on a per capita basis, urban residents
only had 1.92 million agricultural workers in 2016, its tend to use less energy than rural residents.
agricultural density is only 114 people per square mile
(44 per square kilometer).

7 -4 W ha t ar e the c onsequenc es of popula TERMS TO KNOW . . .
7-4 What are the consequences of population tion
distribution and density?
distribution and density? agricultural density: The number of farmers per unit of
arable land

Module 7 Population Distribution and Its Consequences 17
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