Population 03

This KS3 Geography quiz asks questions about population. A census is carried out to find out about a country's population. In the UK, they occur every 10 years. The UK census shows that the population in Great Britain increased dramatically during the second half of the twentieth century. A population grows when more babies are born than people die. The fastest rate of growth was in 1962 and 1963 when the population increased by over two percent each year. Since then, the rate of growth has slowed down and by the end of the twenty-first century, it seems like it will be well under one percent.

Some countries, like Italy and Russia, have a negative population growth. That means that fewer births are occuring than deaths. The average age of the populations of these countries are therefore getting older. In most LEDCs, the birth rate is a lot higher than the death rate, in some cases over three percent. These countries have larger populations of younger people. The state of the population of a country is shown by using a population pyramid. From the shape of these, you can usually tell if the country is an LEDC or an MEDC.