Population: South Africa Flashcards
What is SA’s population distribution like?
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What are the physical factors that influence population distribution?
- Fertile land: historically why people chose to settle down. enabled people to grow crops for commerce/trade.
- Higher population found around areas with good mineral resources e.g. diamonds, gold, and good farming and trading potential e.g. Durban and cape Town.
- River flowing through East side providing people with efficient energy supply for drinking, growing crops, transporting goods.
- West side: not suitable for cultivation because land is steep and no fertile land.
- population decrease from SE to NW due to rainfall distribution. Lower densities in arid and mountainous areas.
What are the economic factors that influence population distribution?
- Attraction of lifestyle and employment especially in urban areas.
- more than 9 tenths of population lives on East side of country and southern coastal regions due to leisure activities and job opportunities. Western side (not cape town) sparsely populated as lack of jobs.
- Since the end of the apartheid era many black people migrated from former homeland areas to large cities such as Guateng in search of work. This increased population in urban areas. Rural areas losing migrants. Up to 2.4 million blacks left white owned commercial farms between 1994-2004. Many moved to small towns. Farm workers generally poor and unskilled so their job prospects are limited.
How did WW1 and WW2 effect the population distribution?
Between WW1 and WW2 industry in SA rapidly developed. Caused many black people from the countryside to migrate to cities to work as labourers in the gold and diamond mines.
What was the apartheid policy and how did it effect population distribution?
Under the white national party, between 1948-1994 they set up the apartheid policy which forced black migrants out of white areas and were relocated into their homeland. Since the end of apartheid, many black people have migrated from their former homeland to large cities in search of work. However, poverty forces many to live in substandard housing on the edge of towns.
Where are the cores?
Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth as they are the most densely populated cities in SA and have the best job opportunities.
Where is the periphery?
nothern and eastern cape
What were the populations in the cores in 2019?
Jo’burg = most populated city: 4.4 mil, Cape Town = 3.7 mil, Durban = 3.4 mil
What were the populations in the periphery?
Northern cape has less than 4 people per km^2 due to lack of job opportunities.
Eastern cape = poorest province in SA. 880,000 people live in poverty.
What type of migration is commonly seen in SA?
Circular migration where worker moves repeatedly between home and host areas.
Circular migrants often take poorly paid jobs in informal economy. High cost of housing causes children to stay home with grandparents.
Poorest in countryside…
often don’t have enough finance or social networks to help them migrate.
