ABSTRACT
Population is as important to geography as to history, but much the same criticism can be made of geographers as of historians. The striking thing about the general study of the location of populations and of the industries which afford them employment has been the way in which it has underlined the point that populations are nowadays more and more their own justification, to put the matter rather cryptically. The prime fact which any geography of Australia should seek to drive home and explain is the remarkable concentration of industry and population in the state capitals. Vidal de la Blache, indeed, in the France de l’Est adumbrated a ‘population’ view of geography in several aspects of his analysis. As an illustration of what might be involved in a ‘population’ view of geography it may be helpful to sketch briefly a study of eastern Australia conceived in this way.
