Population density and distribution

Cambridge IGCSE Geography 0460 Syllabus: 2025 and 2026 only Official syllabus point: 1.4 Assessed on: Paper 1 Geographical Themes (Question 1), and Paper 2 Geographical Skills

This topic is examined for the last time in the November 2026 series. It does not appear in the 2027 syllabus. If you are sitting 0460 in 2027 or later, close this page. Population density and distribution was removed from the content when the syllabus was rewritten, and nothing on this page can be asked of you. The content you need instead is in 6. Changing Populations, which is written to the 2027 syllabus.

If you are sitting the exam in June 2026 or November 2026, this page is on your syllabus and Question 1 of Paper 1 can be built entirely from it.

1. What the syllabus actually says

This is one of the shortest content statements in the whole of 0460, and it is worth quoting exactly, because the examiner can only ask you what is printed here.

1.4 Population density and distribution

Candidates should be able to:

Describe the factors influencing the density and distribution of population

Further guidance:

Physical, economic, social and political factors

Case Studies required for 1.4:

- A densely populated country or area (at any scale from local to regional)
- A sparsely populated country or area (at any scale from local to regional)

Three things follow from that wording, and every one of them shows up in the mark schemes.

The four headings are the syllabus. Physical, economic, social and political. Cambridge has set questions worded "Explain how physical factors can influence population density" (March 2021) and "Explain how economic factors can influence population density" (November 2020) as separate 4 mark questions in separate papers. If you have only learned one list of reasons, half of those marks are unreachable. Learn four lists.

Two case studies, not one. A dense place and a sparse place. They are separate requirements and a single country almost never serves both well.

"At any scale from local to regional." This is unusually generous. Your dense example may be a country (Bangladesh), a region (the Nile valley), or a city district. Your sparse example may be a whole country (Australia) or a part of one (the Northern Territory). The scale you choose does not cost you marks. The detail does.

Where the marks sit

On Paper 1, Theme 1 is Question 1, worth 25 marks, and it is always built the same way:

The March 2024 paper (0460/12) follows that pattern exactly, and it is entirely a density and distribution question: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 25. Nine of the thirty paper sittings in the archive that touch this topic put it in the same slot.

On Paper 2 the same content arrives as a skills question: complete the shading on a choropleth map, calculate a density from a population and an area, describe a distribution from a map, and describe the relationship between density and relief. Nearly a third of the archived questions on this topic are Paper 2 questions, so the skills are worth as much practice as the content.

Paper 4 uses densely populated areas as a setting for fieldwork questions, for example the 2020 study of health in two areas of Chennai. Those questions test sampling and data presentation, not this content. Do not revise density in order to answer them.

2. The two words, and the difference between them

Examiners have asked candidates to define both, and the mark schemes are strict about what counts.

Population density is the number of people living in a given area, usually expressed as people per square kilometre.

The November 2021 mark scheme accepts:

• "a measure of how crowded an area is"
• "number of people in an area in comparison to its size"
• "number of people living in a certain area, per unit of area, per square kilometre or per square mile"

Population distribution is the way the population is spread out across an area: the pattern, not the number. A distribution is described with words like uneven, clustered, coastal, in the north. A density is described with a figure.

Sparsely populated means the number of people in an area is small compared with its size. The March 2024 mark scheme accepts "a low population density", "few people living in a given area", and even "an area where homes are far apart".

Read this next part carefully, because it is the most useful thing in the mark schemes. The same March 2024 scheme prints an explicit zero list for that definition:

The first is zero because it defines under-population, not sparse population, and those are different ideas (section 8). The second is zero because it describes the effect without any reference to area. The third is zero because it restates the question. A definition mark needs both a quantity of people and a reference to the size of the area they are in.

1. few people ÷ large area
2. low density
3. sparsely populated; many people ÷ small area
4. high density
5. densely populated.

Calculating density

Density questions are worth 1 or 2 marks and appear in almost every session. The formula is:

Population density = total population ÷ total land area

Two marks are usually split: one for the working, one for the answer. Write the division out even when you can do it in your head, because if you slip on the arithmetic the working mark survives.

Cambridge's own worked figures from the archive, which are the safest statistics on this page because they come straight from the mark schemes:

The June 2022 paper reversed it: the Pays de la Loire region of France has a density of 120 per km² and an area of 32 082 km², so its total population is 3 849 840. Rearranging is fair game.

Precision matters. The Kenya mark scheme allows 6245.8, 6246 or 6245.84. The Netherlands question demanded "900 to 1000 per km²" and printed the note "Need whole range not a single figure", because the candidate was reading a class off a choropleth key, not a value. Read the key before you answer.

Choropleth maps

A choropleth map shades areas by class, and 0460 uses them constantly for density. Two skills are tested:

• Complete the shading. You are given a value (Florida 980 per km², Olancho 24 per km², Bahawalpur 80 per km²) and must find the right class in the key and copy its shading exactly. The Spain question added the note "same horizontal shading as France or more widely spaced", which tells you the examiner is checking whether you matched the key, not whether your pencil work is neat.
• Read a class off the map. Give the whole range printed in the key, not a single number inside it.

Exam trap: a choropleth shows an average for each unit. The Netherlands map gives Utrecht 900 to 1000 per km², but Utrecht contains both a dense city and open farmland. Larger units hide more variation, which is exactly why a national density figure for Australia or Egypt is close to meaningless.

3. Describing a distribution

This is the single most repeated skill in the topic and the one most candidates undersell. Cambridge has asked "describe the distribution" of a density class at least eleven times in five years, for Africa, South America, Europe, the USA, Bangladesh, Kenya, Australia, the Netherlands and the world.

The mark schemes reward four different kinds of statement, and a 3 mark answer that uses three different kinds scores full marks while a 3 mark answer that names three regions usually does not.

1. The overall pattern, in one word. Mark schemes credit uneven, clustered, not uniform, variable, mixed, and occasionally no pattern. This is a free mark and most candidates skip it.

2. Compass direction. North, south, east, north west, south east. The Europe answer credits "west, western, central Europe". The Australia answer credits "particularly in the east, south east, south west".

3. Coastal against inland. This earns marks over and over. Africa: "mostly coastal". South America: "coastal, bordering ocean, edge of continent". Australia: "many live on the coast, few live inland". The Netherlands scheme even prints "dense on west coast = 2", meaning that one phrase carries two marks because it combines direction and coast.

4. Named places or figures. Kenya credits "clustered near Lake Victoria", "near Nairobi", "few in the north near Lake Turkana". Australia credits "many live in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania". Europe credits latitude: "40N to 60N".

Watch the command word for statistics. Two questions in the archive print "Do not use statistics in your answer" (the Netherlands distribution question and the global agriculture question). One prints "Use statistics in your answer" (New Mexico against Massachusetts). Obeying that instruction is worth more than anything else you write.

Anomalies score. The USA relief question credits "exceptions, e.g. parts of California high relief but dense population". The Netherlands question credits "some areas or anomaly below sea level have a sparse population" and "no clear relationship in the east". Spotting where the rule breaks is treated as a higher skill than stating the rule.

Describing a relationship

When you are given two maps, density and something else, the command changes from describe the distribution to describe the relationship, and the answer must link the two variables in one sentence.

The Netherlands mark scheme opens with: "Negative or inverse relationship; as relief decreases population density increases". That single clause is the mark. Then support it with paired figures from both maps, then give the anomaly.

1. state the direction of the relationship
2. support it with a figure from each map
3. name one anomaly that does not fit.

4. Physical factors

Cambridge set "Explain how physical factors can influence population density" as a straight 4 mark question in March 2021. The mark scheme is organised as paired opposites, and it explicitly warns against double credit, so make each of your four points a different physical factor rather than the same factor stated twice.

The Iceland question in November 2021 is the model answer. It asked for two different physical factors, four marks, and the mark scheme splits them as "2 marks for identifying correct factors and 2 marks for explanation". So each factor must be named and then consequenced:

1. Iceland is at a high latitude near the Arctic Circle
2. temperatures are very low
3. crops cannot be grown and outdoor work is difficult
4. few people settle.

1. Iceland is an island far from mainland Europe
2. it is not easily accessible
3. it is isolated and travel is expensive
4. immigration and settlement are limited.

Exam trap, and it is a real one. The March 2024 photograph question printed "References to climate = 0", because the photograph showed relief and vegetation but carried no climatic evidence at all. When the question says "using evidence from Fig. 1.1 only", a correct geographical statement that is not visible in the resource scores nothing. The same list zeroed "secluded", "not flat", "landslides", "lack of shops" and "poor internet".

5. Economic factors

Set as its own 4 mark question in November 2020. The mark scheme is longer than the physical one and it is not just "jobs".

• Employment. Work, industry and the chance to earn money attract people. Naming the industry is what turns a Level 1 statement into a creditable one: tourism, energy, mining, manufacturing, financial services.
• Level of development. More economically developed and economically stable areas tend to be densely populated. A lack of economic development produces a sparse population.
• Accessibility. Economic development builds roads, railways, motorways and airports, which makes an area reachable, which attracts more people. The Libya mark scheme reserves a mark specifically for transport.
• Ports and trade. Harbours, shipping routes, ferry terminals, imports and exports. The Netherlands scheme lists "trade, exports, imports, access to shipping routes, providing harbours, passenger or ferry ports, port development, hinterland for port" as separate creditable ideas.
• The multiplier effect. One industry arrives, jobs are created, workers move in, their spending supports shops and services, which creates further jobs, which attracts more people. This is a development mark and it is worth writing out.
• Investment and infrastructure. Improved healthcare and education attract people in their own right.
• Resource extraction. Mines, quarries and oil fields put dense settlements into otherwise empty land.
• Poverty. The scheme also credits the reverse direction: "poverty may lead to high density housing, shanty towns". Density is not always a sign of prosperity.

1. mineral deposit discovered
2. mine opens and creates jobs
3. workers move in
4. roads and a railway are built to move the ore
5. the area becomes accessible
6. shops, schools and other industry follow
7. density rises.

Note the phrasing rule. The November 2020 scheme says "can refer to sparse or dense but no double credit of ideas". Saying "jobs attract people" and then "no jobs means people leave" is one mark, not two.

6. Social and political factors

These are the two headings candidates forget, and Cambridge lists them in the further guidance, so they are examinable.

Social factors

• Services. Schools, hospitals, clinics, shops and entertainment concentrate people. Their absence pushes people out of rural areas.
• Family and community ties. People stay near relatives, and migrants move to areas where their community is already established.
• Culture and religion. Sacred sites and religious centres draw permanent populations. Some groups maintain a traditional nomadic or dispersed way of life at low density.
• Housing. Where housing is available and affordable, density rises. High land prices push people outward.
• Disease. The South America mark scheme credits "disease in lowlands" and the coast being "disease free" as reasons for the pattern of density in the tropics. Historically, malaria and sleeping sickness kept whole regions sparsely settled.
• Education. Areas with universities and good schools attract families.

Political factors

• Capital cities. The Netherlands scheme lists "capital city" as a stand alone creditable reason for a density above 1000 per km². Government concentrates jobs, embassies, services and investment in one place.
• Government policy. New capitals built deliberately, such as Brasília, Abuja, Naypyidaw and Nusantara, move population by decision rather than by geography. Regional development policy, tax incentives and special economic zones do the same at a smaller scale.
• Border and immigration policy. Visa rules, quotas and closed borders limit how many people an area can gain.
• War and conflict. The Pakistan mark scheme credits "war, conflict" among the factors explaining areas of low density, and November 2024 credits "war, political issues" in a 7 mark answer.
• Political stability. Investment, and therefore people, avoid unstable areas.
• Protected land. National parks, military zones and reserves keep areas legally empty. The November 2020 scheme credits "much land is used for agriculture or protected environments".

One live inconsistency, and you should know about it. For "explain why an area is sparsely populated", the November 2020 mark scheme prints "reference to birth controls, immigration or VISAs, war and natural disasters = 0", while the November 2024 mark scheme lists "out migration, negative net migration" and "war, disease" in its content guide. Cambridge has moved. In a 2026 exam, lead with the physical and economic reasons, which are credited in every version of the scheme, and use political and migration reasons as supporting development rather than as your first three points.

7. The exceptions Cambridge actually sets

The general rules above will get you to Level 2. What separates a top answer is knowing where they fail, and the examiners set those cases deliberately.

High land is not always empty

The June 2021 South America question is the clearest example. The mark scheme states the relationship as:

• lower density in the lowlands, below 200 m
• higher density in the highlands, above 2000 m

That is the opposite of the usual rule, and the reasons follow in the same paper: "highland cooler, lowland hotter", "disease in lowlands". In the tropics, altitude gives a temperate climate at a tropical latitude. Bogotá, Quito, Mexico City, Addis Ababa and La Paz are all large, dense cities on high ground. The rule "people avoid mountains" is a mid latitude rule.

Low land is not always full

The June 2024 Netherlands question runs the other way. The mark scheme records dense areas below sea level, from 1 to more than 4 m below, and sparser areas above it, and then adds the anomalies: "south west sparse but below sea level" and "no clear relationship in the east". The Dutch built their densest region on drained land because of ports and trade, not because of relief.

Dense pockets inside empty regions

March 2024 asked candidates to "explain two different reasons why there may be small areas of high population density within large areas that are sparsely populated". The mark scheme is worth memorising as a list, because it appears nowhere in a textbook:

• an oasis in a desert
• an exotic river, a river that rises in a wet region and flows through an arid one, such as the Nile or the Colorado
• a mining, oil drilling or power settlement in a desert or polar region
• a dry point settlement on raised ground in a marshy area
• valley floors within mountainous areas
• settlements along roads or railways in an otherwise isolated region

The scheme requires a reason and an explanation for each: "next to a river flowing through a desert (1) so people can grow food there (2)".

Uneven is not the same as sparse

November 2024 asked why mountainous areas have an uneven population distribution and printed the note: "The answer must address the uneven distribution NOT just why the entire area is sparsely populated." The answer must be built on variation within the area: variation in relief, so people concentrate in valleys and avoid the peaks; variation in soil fertility, so farming succeeds on valley floors and fails on rock; variation in shelter, so valleys are settled and exposed slopes are not; variation in access along the valley routes.

8. Over-population and under-population

This belongs to old point 1.1 rather than 1.4, but it is written up here for one reason: it was removed from the syllabus at the same time and for the same reason, and it is not covered in 6. Changing Populations, which is written to the 2027 content. Cambridge sets it beside density constantly, including a paper that used a density map of Bangladesh and a density map of Australia as the evidence for both ideas.

Over-population exists when there are too many people for the resources available to support them.

Under-population exists when there are too few people to use the available resources to their full potential.

Optimum population is the population that gets the best possible standard of living from the resources available.

The point students most often miss: neither term is about density. Bangladesh is dense and over-populated. Australia is sparse and under-populated. But the Netherlands is dense and not over-populated, because it has the technology, trade and wealth to feed and house its people, and the Sahel can be sparse and over-populated, because the resources there are so thin that even a small population exceeds them. Over-population is a ratio of people to resources, not people to land.

1. resources available ÷ people
2. high ratio is under-population
3. balanced ratio is optimum population
4. low ratio is over-population.

Causes of over-population

From the March 2021 5 mark scheme, which is the fullest list Cambridge has printed:

A rising population

• high or rising birth rate; no contraception, no knowledge of it, no money for it, or religious discouragement
• children are wanted for labour, to fetch water and wood, to care for siblings, to earn, and to support parents in old age
• tradition, culture and religion favour large families
• women are not in careers or education
• high infant mortality, so families have more children in expectation of losing some
• early marriage, and no access to abortion
• falling death rates and rising life expectancy from better health care, water, sanitation and food
• large scale immigration

A falling resource base

• few mineral, timber or fuel deposits, or deposits becoming exhausted
• aridity, low rainfall and lack of water
• poor soils and low crop yields
• not enough land to farm

The levels note is exceptionally clear in the November 2021 mark scheme and tells you exactly how to write it:

A bare cause is Level 1. A cause with its reason attached, or a cause linked to its consequence, is Level 2. That is the whole difference.

Problems caused by over-population

Cambridge has set this at 4, 5 and 7 marks and the schemes overlap heavily. Group them, because grouped answers reach Level 3 faster.

Two zero marks are printed and both catch good candidates. The March 2022 scheme states "Not enough resources / resources run out = 0", because that is the definition of over-population being restated as a problem, and "Emigration = 0 (can use as DEV)", because emigration is a response rather than a problem. The November 2022 scheme allows crime only as development, meaning it must be attached to a cause such as unemployment.

Causes of under-population

• Physical constraints on settlement: a climate or relief that few people can live in, which is why sparse and under-populated so often occur together
• Emigration, a long history of people leaving
• Disease, war and famine reducing the population
• A very large resource base relative to the population, so even a normal number of people cannot exploit it all

Problems caused by under-population

The May 2021 and March 2024 schemes together give the full list:

• Labour: a shortage of workers and of skills; underemployment of the resources that do exist
• Resources: minerals, land and energy are underused or too expensive to exploit for the workforce available
• Output: low production, so goods must be imported, and there is a small domestic market for businesses
• Government finance: a small tax base, so services are expensive to provide per head; higher taxes on those who do pay
• Services and business: services and businesses close because there are not enough customers to make them viable
• Investment: it is hard to attract investment, and expensive to attract immigrants
• Defence: too few people to staff the armed forces
• Society: racial or social tension where large scale immigration is used to fill the gap
• Development: slower economic growth overall, though the mark scheme allows this only as development, never as a stand alone point

The March 2024 zero list is subtle and worth reading twice. It zeroes "lack of schools, hospitals, shops" and "shops or hospitals close due to lack of workers". The creditable version is that services close or are not provided because there are too few people to make them viable, or because the tax base cannot fund them. The economic reason is the mark. The bare observation that facilities are missing is not.

Do not write that under-population is simply good or simply bad. The June 2021 scheme prints "Note: consequences could be positive or negative". An under-populated country typically has high wages, plenty of space, low pollution and a high standard of living per person. Saying so, and then arguing the balance, is exactly what Level 3 looks like.

9. Detailed example: a densely populated country, Bangladesh

Cambridge itself used Bangladesh as the dense and over-populated case in the June 2020 Paper 2, so it is a safe choice.

The scale of it

• Bangladesh recorded a population of about 169.8 million at the 2022 census, on a land area of about 147 570 km².
• That gives roughly 1 150 people per km². International agencies quote a higher figure, around 1 300 per km², because they divide by land area only and exclude the large area of the country that is permanently water. Both figures are correct; say which you are using.
• Compare that with a world average of about 54 people per km² in 2022, and with Australia's 3.4.
• The June 2020 Cambridge map showed the densest districts at more than 1300 people per km², and the mark scheme recorded that they lie in the north, in the centre, and inland.
• Dhaka is among the most densely populated large cities in the world, with a metropolitan population of more than 20 million in the mid 2020s.

Physical reasons for the density

• Bangladesh is almost entirely the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna. It is flat, low lying, and easy to build on and farm.
• Annual flooding deposits fertile alluvial silt, so soils are renewed each year and yields are high without expensive fertiliser.
• The monsoon brings heavy, reliable summer rainfall, so rice can be grown, in many districts two or three crops a year.
• Abundant surface water for drinking, irrigation, fishing and transport.

Economic and social reasons

• Rice and jute farming support a very large rural population directly from the land.
• The ready made garment industry is the country's dominant export sector and employs several million workers, most of them women, concentrating population in and around Dhaka and Chattogram.
• Chattogram is the main port, and port work draws in labour.
• Long standing high birth rates left a young population, which continues to add people even as fertility falls.

Why it counts as over-populated

The Cambridge mark scheme credits, from its own maps: "dense population", "no sparse areas", "no or few minerals", "relies on manufacturing". The problems that follow are the ones in section 8: pressure on food supply, overcrowded and often informal housing, pressure on water and sanitation, and vulnerability, because a country this dense on a delta this low has nowhere to move when the rivers flood or a cyclone makes landfall in the Bay of Bengal.

The honest counter-argument, which earns Level 3. Bangladesh has cut its fertility rate sharply and grown its economy quickly, and the standard of living has risen while the population has risen. Whether it is over-populated depends on whether you measure people against land or against resources and technology. Saying that, and then coming down on one side, is judgement rather than description.

10. Detailed example: a sparsely populated country, Australia

Cambridge used Australia as its own under-populated example in June 2020 and as its distribution example in March 2024, and the November 2020 mark scheme lists Australia first among "acceptable examples" for a sparse population question.

The scale of it

• Population about 26.5 million in 2023, on an area of about 7.69 million km².
• National density is therefore about 3.4 people per km², roughly one three hundredth of Bangladesh's.
• The Northern Territory holds around 250 000 people across about 1.35 million km², a density of roughly 0.19 per km². That single region is larger than France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined.
• The Cambridge map used in June 2020 showed the interior at fewer than 0.1 people per km².
• Australia is nonetheless one of the most urbanised countries in the world: around 86 per cent of Australians live in urban areas, and Sydney alone holds more than 5 million people. Sparse and urbanised at the same time is not a contradiction, and saying why is a Level 3 point.

The distribution, in the exact terms the March 2024 mark scheme credits

• Uneven and clustered
• High density on the coast, low density inland and in the centre
• Particularly the east, south east and south west
• Most people in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania; few in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. Those first three states alone hold roughly three quarters of the population.

Physical reasons for the sparseness

• The interior, the Outback, is hot desert and semi desert. Much of it receives under 250 mm of rain a year and summer temperatures regularly exceed 40 °C.
• There is almost no reliable surface water across the interior, so no irrigation and no permanent farming.
• Soils are ancient, thin and infertile across much of the continent.
• The Great Dividing Range in the east forces the wetter, more temperate conditions onto the narrow eastern coastal strip, and that is exactly where the people are.

Economic and political reasons

• Employment, industry, universities, ports and services are concentrated in the coastal cities.
• The interior is remote, and building and maintaining roads, railways, power and water across those distances is extremely expensive.
• Mining is the exception, and it explains the anomalies. The March 2024 paper gave candidates a mineral resources map alongside the density map for exactly this reason, and the mark scheme credits: minerals provide energy sources and employment, they attract further industry through the multiplier effect, and roads and railways are built to extract them, which makes the area less isolated. Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and the iron ore towns of the Pilbara are dense dots in an empty region, which is the March 2024 "small areas of high density" list made real.
• Alice Springs, with roughly 25 000 people, exists in the centre of the continent as a transport, service and tourism node.

Why it counts as under-populated

Cambridge's own scheme credits "sparse population", "centre very sparse, under 0.1 per km²", "very large area", and "rich in minerals but exports". That last phrase is the whole argument: Australia has more iron ore, coal, bauxite, gold and gas than its population can process, so it exports the raw material rather than manufacturing from it, and it runs skilled migration programmes precisely because it does not have enough workers for the resources it holds.

11. Smaller scale examples

The syllabus allows local or regional case studies, and they are often easier to make place specific than a whole country. Keep one of each in reserve.

Dense, at regional scale: the Nile valley and delta, Egypt. Egypt had a population of roughly 105 million in 2023 across about 1 001 000 km², giving a national density near 105 per km², which tells you nothing at all. Around 95 per cent of Egyptians live on the 4 to 5 per cent of the land that is the Nile valley and delta, so the real density on the inhabited strip is well above 2 000 per km², while the Western Desert is close to empty. This is the exotic river case from section 7, at national scale, and it is the single best illustration of why an average density figure can be misleading. The November 2020 mark scheme lists Egypt among its acceptable sparse population examples for exactly the same reason, which shows how flexible the scale rule is.

Dense, at regional scale: the Randstad, the Netherlands. The Netherlands had about 17.9 million people in 2024 on roughly 33 700 km² of land, a density near 530 per km², and the Cambridge map put Utrecht province at 900 to 1000 per km² with the densest provinces above 1000. The Randstad, the ring of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, is dense for economic and political reasons rather than physical ones: Rotterdam is Europe's largest port, the government and financial sector sit in the same ring, and much of the land was drained and built on deliberately.

Sparse, at regional scale: the Canadian north. Canada had about 40 million people in 2023 across nearly 10 million km², a density of about 4 per km², and the population is famously concentrated in a narrow band close to the United States border, leaving the territories almost empty because of extreme cold, permafrost that will not support foundations, a very short growing season and severe isolation.

12. What the mark schemes reward and refuse

This section exists because reading 110 mark schemes reveals rules that the syllabus never states.

Rewarded

• The word "uneven". Nearly every distribution scheme opens with it, and most candidates never write it.
• Paired statements. "Dense on the coast, sparse inland" is credited as a single strong point rather than two weak ones, and the Netherlands scheme prints "dense on west coast = 2", meaning a phrase combining direction and coast is worth double.
• Statistics with units. The New Mexico question reserves a mark specifically for "comparative statistics with units".
• Anomalies. Explicitly credited on the USA, South America and Netherlands questions.
• Development, not just points. Several 5 mark schemes print "5 @ 1 mark or development", meaning a point taken further earns as much as a new point. "People live near Lake Victoria (1) for water supply, fishing and tourism (dev)."
• Reserved marks. The Libya question reserves one mark each for natural resources and transport. The Lagos question reserves a mark for choosing the correct photograph. If a question names two things, you must cover both.

Refused

• Restating the question. "Population density is not high" as a definition of sparsely populated scores zero.
• Content not visible in the named resource, when the question says "only".
• "Not enough resources" as a problem of over-population.
• "Emigration" as a problem of over-population, though it works as development.
• "Lack of schools and hospitals" as a problem of under-population, without the economic reason.
• "Border" or "edge" instead of "coast" in the Australia distribution question.
• Vague words. "Secluded" scored zero where "isolated and remote" scored.

Photograph evidence questions have their own repeated list, used for Amman, Yaoundé and Lagos. To argue a place is densely populated from a photograph: buildings are high rise or multi storey; buildings are close together or packed; there is little or no open space, greenery or parks; there is building on slopes; there are many people, vehicles or traffic congestion. The Lagos scheme adds a warning: comparative points about the other photographs must actually be comparative, and choosing the wrong photograph scores zero for the whole question.

13. Answering the 7 mark question

Twelve of the archived density questions are the levelled 7 mark essay, and they come in only four shapes:

1. For a named country or area, explain why it is sparsely populated or has a low population density. Set five times.
2. For a named country, describe the problems, or impacts, caused by over-population. Set four times.
3. For a named country, explain the causes of over-population. Set once.
4. For a named country, describe the causes, or the problems, of under-population. Set three times.

Every single one prints the same rule:

Level 1 (1 to 3): statements with limited detail. Level 2 (4 to 6): uses a named example, with more developed statements. Max 5 if no named or inappropriate example. Level 3 (7): a named example, comprehensive and accurate statements, including some place specific reference.

Two operational notes are printed in the schemes and both are easy to fall foul of.

"If country is chosen the bulk of it needs to be sparsely populated (otherwise credit at Max 5)." Choosing Brazil for a sparse population question is an inappropriate example even though the Amazon basin is empty, because most Brazilians live in dense coastal cities. The November 2020 scheme names the safe choices: Australia, Canada, Egypt, Switzerland, Lesotho. Choose one of those, or narrow your answer to a named region and say so in the first line.

"Place specific reference is likely to consist of: named parts, settlements, mountains or roads in the chosen country, population data, climatic data." That is a checklist. Three sentences in an answer about Australia that contain the words Northern Territory, 0.19 people per km² and under 250 mm of rain a year have satisfied it. Three paragraphs of correct general geography have not.

A structure that reaches Level 3 in six sentences

1. name the place and its scale in the first line
2. give the density figure and the date
3. give one physical reason with a named part of the country
4. give one economic reason with a named settlement or industry
5. give one social or political reason
6. close with an anomaly or a figure that shows you know the place rather than the topic.

14. Common exam mistakes

• Defining population density without any reference to area. "Lots of people" is not a density.
• Confusing density with distribution. Density is a number per unit area. Distribution is a pattern.
• Confusing sparsely populated with under-populated, or densely populated with over-populated. They are different ideas and the mark schemes zero the confusion explicitly.
• Describing a distribution without the word uneven, and without any compass direction.
• Ignoring "do not use statistics" or "use statistics" in the command.
• Using a factor that is not visible in the resource when the question says "only".
• Giving four physical reasons on a question that asked about economic factors, or the reverse.
• Answering "why is this area unevenly populated" with reasons why the whole area is empty.
• Writing "not enough resources" as a problem of over-population. It is the definition, so it scores zero.
• Writing "hospitals close" as a problem of under-population without the tax base or viability reason behind it.
• Naming a country on the 7 mark question but giving no figures, no dates and no named regions. That is Level 2, capped at 6.
• Choosing a country for a sparse population question where most of the population is actually concentrated. The scheme caps that at 5.
• Assuming mountains are always empty. In the tropics the highlands are the temperate, healthy, densely settled zone.

15. Quick revision

• Density = total population ÷ total land area, in people per km². Show the division for the working mark.
• Distribution is the pattern; density is the number.
• The syllabus factors are physical, economic, social and political. Learn four lists, not one.
• Physical: relief, temperature, rainfall, soil, water, resources, vegetation, drainage, coast, hazards.
• Economic: jobs, industry, level of development, accessibility, ports and trade, the multiplier effect, mining, and poverty producing dense informal housing.
• Social: services, family ties, culture, housing, disease, education. Political: capital cities, government policy, borders, conflict, stability, protected land.
• Describing a distribution: uneven, then compass direction, then coastal against inland, then a named place or figure, then an anomaly.
• Describing a relationship: state its direction first, support with a figure from each resource, then give the anomaly.
• Tropical highlands are densely populated because altitude gives a cooler, healthier climate. Cambridge has set this.
• Dense pockets in empty regions: oases, exotic rivers, mining and oil settlements, dry point sites, valley floors, transport routes.
• Over-population is too many people for the resources. Under-population is too few people for the resources. Neither is about density.
• Over-population causes: high birth rate with its reason attached, falling death rate, immigration, and a thin or exhausting resource base.
• Under-population problems: labour shortage, underused resources, low output, small tax base, services not viable, hard to attract investment. All of them economic.
• Dense case study: Bangladesh, about 169.8 million in 2022 on 147 570 km², roughly 1 150 per km², a fertile monsoon delta.
• Sparse case study: Australia, about 26.5 million in 2023 on 7.69 million km², about 3.4 per km², an arid interior and a temperate coastal strip.
• Every 7 mark question prints "Max 5 if no named or inappropriate example". Name the place in your first line.
• Place specific means named regions, named settlements, population data and climatic data. Not adjectives.
• This topic ends with the November 2026 series.

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