After thousands of years of relatively slow growth, the past two centuries has seen an explosive increase in the world's human population. For example, from the time of the birth of Christ to the late 1700s the number of humans only grew to about 250 million. In the modern era, it only takes 2.5 years to add that many more people to the global population.
Historically, centers of population density have tended to occur in areas of fertile soils. Civilizations like the Ancient Egyptians thrived where food could easily be cultivated.
Although modern transportation theoretically should cause populations to disperse, this has not been the case. Instead, the different cultures with high population growth rates only tend to make already crowded areas even more congested.
It is estimated that until the year 2000 when 6.3 billion persons are expected to inhabit the earth 90 percent of global population growth will occur in Third World countries. As illustrated by figure 1 3, different factors contribute to population growth rates. Initially, populations exist in a slow growth rate phase where birth rates are kept in check by such things as famine and disease. This slow growth occurs in agricultural populations. With the onset of industrialization and urbanization, better health standards begin to eradicate disease and populations start to grow rapidly. It isn't until the final stage that attitudes begin to change, and birth rates decline.
Many of today's underdeveloped countries have yet to develop the attitudes necessary to limit their population growth rates.
What geographic features of the old USSR have contributed to its break up, and what geographic features of the various new states place limits on their economic development? Be specific and give examples from the maps.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a pivotal event in world history. The break up of the USSR had been a long time coming. Va...