ABSTRACT
Population has always figured prominently in geography. Consideration of the distribution and density of population has been a starting point in many geographical studies, a finishing point in others, and has occasionally played both roles when the purpose of the study was to bring a new understanding of some aspects of distribution patterns (Wrigley, 1965B). We are frequently referred to maps showing densities of population, to general models of population distribution in space in the manner first pioneered by Christaller and Lösch, to studies of the relative rates of growth of settlements of different sizes, to questions like rural depopulation, to ideas like the market orientation of industry (which usually means simply the location of plants at places where there are a lot of people to buy the products). But for these purposes often little more than the crude totals of population are used, though sometimes these may be broken down further by occupational divisions, by age-structure, or in some other way. Changes in population totals over time and migration have occasionally been analysed with some rigour, and the use of models is now widespread in the attempt to achieve a clearer understanding of migration (see, for example, Lund Studies, 1957). Little attention, however, has been given to the construction or use of demographic models: nor has their potential importance to the understanding of several issues which bulk large in human geography been widely discussed.
