Concepts of the over-under-and optimum population geography

The concept under, over, and optimum population came as opposition to the Malthus theory of population.
As in the Malthus theory of population, Malthus asserted that population growth is always bad for any geographical region and it leads to a food crisis if population growth is high. But, actually, population growth in some areas is very much needed for the effective utilization and development of the region.

For example, in Canada and Russia,  population growth is very much needed for their development and resource utilization.
As human does not have the only stomach to eat but also have two hands and a brain for creating & utilizing resources, the population is not a problem as Malthus asserted.

The concept of under, over and optimal population tries to make the relationship between the human population and resource availability of particular regions. As per this concept, population growth is not always bad for countries as it increases the number of the working population that further increases the development by utilizing resources efficiently.


Before going to discuss the concept of under, over, and optimum population, we need to first understand the concept of physiographic density, agricultural density, and urban density.

Physiographic density?

Physiographic density=population per square kilometers of agricultural land. 

Agricultural density?

Agricultural density=number of the farmer or labor per square kilometers of agricultural land. 

Urban density?

Urban density=population per square kilometers of urban land

We can get information about population pressure on resources through physiographic & agriculture density.  Through urban density, resource mobilization in urban planning can be done as per urban density.

Population density region of the world?

Based on population density, the world can be divided into three regions.

world population region

• High population density regions: 
• South Asia, Eastern China, western Europe, eastern North America 
• Normal population density regions:
• South America, Africa, Australia, South East Asia, central Asia, eastern Europe, 
• Low population density regions: 
• Canada, Russia, tundra, Taiga region, Sahara desert, hilly region. 

Concept of underpopulation: 

In a geographical region, per capita income increase and resources do not deplete with the increase of population. This condition, we called the region is underpopulated. 
It is a situation, the population is too small to utilize the full resources or the present population is not adequate to avail of all the benefits of available resources. Canada and Russia are an example of underpopulation countries. 

Under population are found because of the following reasons:

• Low birth rate
• Technology is not available or developed to utilize the resources, for example, the Amazon basin
• The high death rate of the population, for example, in the central African region. 
• Relative low population situation occurs due to sufficient resource development.

Concept of overpopulation

In a geographical region, per capita income and resources decreases with the increase of population. This condition, we called the region is overpopulated. 
In this situation, the population is greater than the available resources such as water, land, food, etc. Overpopulation happens generally because of the two reasons: 

• High population increment 
• Depletion of natural resources for any reason, for example, 
• Groundwater depletion due to over-extraction 
• Surface water scarcity due to low rainfall due or climate change.
• Decreasing crop productivity due to climate change.

The following are the indicator of overpopulation:

• Widespread hunger in the population 
• Malnutrition in population 
• High physiographic density 
• Conflict due to food, water, home, land shortage 
• Low-income level of the population
• The rapid increase of the rural population 
• Skew distribution of land
• Low agriculture yield
• Lack of social development 
• Non-resilience of the agriculture sector.

Concept of the optimum population:

Theoretically, it is a perfect population but difficult to define the optimum population. The population is able to utilize all the locally available resources in sustainable ways. Approximately 2 billion population is considered an optimum population of the world at presently available resources & technologies, but as of now, we are nearly 8 billion population on this planet, which is surely not optimum.

Overpopulation > optimum population > underpopulation

The following are the indicator of the optimum population: 

• The highest lifestyle of people via sustainable development
• Fully utilization of resources.
• Productivity can not be increased further in present availed technology if the population is increased then there will be a decrement in the lifestyle of the people.

• Tweet
• Share
• Share
• Share
• Share

Related Post