Geo 7 Lab 1

Map # 1

     This map is selected from an article called "An Interview with Frank Popper about Shrinking Cities, Buffalo Commons, and the Future of Flint".  What's shown in this map is the change in US population from 1970 to 2030, where orange indicates increases and blue indicates decreases in population. It is clearly shown that the West Coast, especially California, has the most population growth among the country. On the other hand, the East Coast shows the most population decrease. I found this map very interesting because I was expecting a dramatic population increase in the East Coast, since those states are the oldest and most developed states in the United States. Especially when New York and its surrounding states support the majority of this country's financial system. It is interesting to see that people are actually moving out of the East Coast area and moving into the Western areas for more opportunities. 

Map #2

     This is a map I found in Wikipedia on the introduction of China. The map shows the population density of China using different shades of red and yellow. The central part of China clearly has the highest density whereas the northwestern part barely holds any population. I found this map interesting because China is such an over-populated country, but half of its land is almost empty with no residents. After researching the geographic information of this empty area, I found out that this area contains a lot of mountains. The high altitude makes it very hard for humans to develop cities here due to the harsh environmental conditions. 

Map #3

      The source of this map is "Census, 2001". This is a population density map of India before 2000. It is clear to see that the population of India is distributed almost evenly among the country. Although the population is a little bit denser towards the north, overall the country does not have many empty areas. In comparison to the population density map of China, this map shows that the population distribution of India is actually quite even. It is interesting because it makes me wonder what is going to happen when India's population keeps growing at such rapid speed. Soon the country will run out of space since India is so much smaller than China, and there are not many available spaces.