The following areas of the world have moderate density of population of between 10 and 80 persons per square kilometer.
(a) Central part of the United States of America
(b) Tropical Western Africa,
(c) Russia,
(d)Eastern Europe,
(e) Deccan Plateau of India,
(f) Central China
(g) Southern portion of the Plateau of Mexico, North-eastern Brazil and Central Chile in Latin America.
Moderate density areas are found mostly around the areas of densest population in Asia, Europe and Eastern United States of America.
In U.S.A to the west of industrially advanced Eastern part is the agricultural region. Here, very big-size grain farms are run by big joint stock companies with most modern agricultural machinery. Tractors threshers, harvesters and small aeroplanes are used for cultivation purposes. In short, agricultural activity is completely mechanized and a few labours are required in agricultural farms. As such few inhabitants are there. Due to predominance of mechanized agriculture in Mid-Western USA, Canada and Russia, density of population in agricultural area is moderate.
The low altitude in certain portion of Asia, Tropical Africa and Latin America has caused the climate to be favorable for human settlement and some economic activities, i.e. agricultural forestry, fishing and gathering have been undertaken by local inhabitants. In Africa centres of moderate density of population are found in the coastal areas of the North, in parts of Nigeria and in small portions of South Africa. But underdevelopment of these areas does not support a dense population. Between India and China there is a large area with moderate density of population between 15 to 40 persons per square kilometer. Here Burma, Thailand, Kampuchea, Vietnam and others are able to produce some crops, especially rice in sufficient quantities. They are also able to sell the surplus rice to other tropical countries.
In Europe, the rate of industrial progress is not very high, i.e., Northern Scotland, Denmark, parts of Poland and Balkan Peninsula have density of population of less than 80 persons per square kilometer.
In South America and Australia moderate density of population is found in small but widely scattered areas along the outer rims of the continents.
(iii) Low Density Areas. About half the land area of world has very thin population, even less than 10 persons per square kilometer. A vast area remains completely uninhabited. These uninhabited lands occur in both the hemispheres. Main areas are:
(a) Equatorial forest regions of Amazon in South America and Congo in Africa
(b) Arctic area of Canada, Greenland and the Polar regions
(c) Great Deserts of the world, i.e. Sahara, Kalahari, Arabia (all of Africa), Great Sandy Desert of Australia, Atacama Desert of South America. Desert region of the Western United States, Thar Desert of India.
(d) High mountainous regions in all continents.
(e) Antarctica.
Some of the areas in this zone are such as are of recent settlement but they enjoy a very high standard of living. Australia with an average density of population of 2 persons per sq. km. is one of the most sparsely populated countries of the world. Inhabitants here enjoy a high standard of living.
Obviously, the reasons for low density of areas of the world are:
(a) Bad and unfavorable environment conditions for human settlement.
(b) Lack of economic activities.
(c) Lack of means of transportation and communication resulting in isolation.
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