Ch. 12: The Human Effect Vocabulary: population distribution, climate, inhabitants

Picture Your Perfect House What does it look like? Does it have a yard? What is it next to? What type of climate is it in?

Population Distribution People are spread out over Earth in an unequal way. There are many reasons that people choose one area before choosing another.

Places People Don’t Want to Live Few people want to live in an area that has a lack of water or vegetation, like a desert. At the tops of mountains or in the arctic where it is cold is another difficult place to live. In the middle of thick forests, where people can’t see what is sneaking up on them.

Places People Want to Live People prefer to live in an area where it is not too hot or too cold, where we can see a long distance, with adequate rainfall. Usually these areas are next to areas that have natural resources we can use to build houses, and are next to water sources that we can use to water ourselves, our crops, and our animals.

Continents Where People Live 81% of the World’s Population lives in Asia, Europe, and North America. These continents only make up half the world’s land. They have large areas of fertile soil, plains, and valleys. They have good freshwater sources, rich natural resources, and moderate climates.

Continents With Smaller Populations Australia, Africa, Antarctica, and South America have fewer resources, or the climate is not as favorable as the other three continents.

Australia The Australian continent is 3 million square miles in size, almost as large as the United States. About 19 million people live in Australia, that’s about the same as New York City. Most of Australia is made up of desert and dry grassland.

Africa Africa has about 20% of the worlds land, but only 13% of the world’s population. Two of the world’s largest deserts are in Africa: the Sahara desert, and the Kalahari desert. Most people in Africa live along the coastal regions where there is a moderate climate, and water they can drink. There are animals there that consider humans a food source.

South America Most of South America is made of high mountains and thick rainforests. Like Africa, most of the inhabitants live along the Atlantic coast.

Antarctica The continent of Antarctica is too cold for humans to live on unassisted. For most of the year there is no liquid water for us to drink.

Questions about Chapter Africa is a huge continent. Why do so few people live there? 2. What is population distribution? 3. What four things do people prefer to have in the places they live? 4. Why does most of the population of the world live on the Asian, European, and North American continents? 5. In which two places do people not want to live because it is too cold?