ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns how and why demographic and settlement characteristics of remote populations, alongside the data and knowledge systems in place to capture information about them, challenge our capacity for modelling of their population futures. For remote areas, more so than other spatialities, these difficulties extend to the most basic lines of demographic enquiry such as age and sex compositions. The globalised economy is information intensive and demanding of retrospective and forecasting data is passe. It discusses a very bleak picture in terms of the capacity of forecasting as a science to deliver information on which planning for remote areas can confidently be based. Evidence of impacts from the challenges outlined above is clear in the forecast errors for projections of populations in remote regions. Remote populations present many challenges for generating meaningful forecasts, some of which are unique to the circumstance of remoteness, and some of which are common to all projections.
