France - Population Distribution; Physical | Human Resources

France - Population Distribution; Physical | Human Resources

1. Population is unevenly distributed because of resource availability

2. Physical - fertile soils | climate | relief

3. Human - government | finance | trade | jobs

4. Areas w| favourable resources have higher densities of people than those w| fewer resources

5. 3 Physical Reasons

6. 1.) Lowland Basins - Paris Basin; most heavily populated - 9.6 million (20% of countries city dwellers)

7. Extremely fertile | prosperous agriculture for wheat | climate - mild winters and warm summers

8. Paris Basin is the centre of government | finance to attract many people for jobs, also, Disneyland Paris (famous tourist area) attracts job seekers

9. 2.) Central Massif - agricultural zone for pastoral farming but little industry

10. Climate is cool | wet | poor soils; infertile

11. Beautiful region but hard for many people to make a living - relatively low pop density of <100 per km2

12. 3.) High Alpine Mountains | Pyrenees - faces relief | altitude problems so agriculture is limited to valley floors of 3000 m high mtns

13. Cold mountain climates mean land unsuitable for agriculture

14. Good tourism benefits local economies but its hard to make a living so pop density is low

15. 2 Human Reasons

16. 1.) Jobs - Paris largest urban area w| pop density 20,000 per km2 so as a result...

17. Nord Coalfield in decline - young people migrating to larger cities for education, agriculture is poor so job seekers look to cities and small towns have no tertiary services - due to increasing popularity, forced to move to where services are available

18. 2.) Government - trying to decrease pop in cities. Its harder to get planning permission for new builds | charge high rates of tax on profits to reduce industries setting up so people move with industry

19. Improved infrastructure | decentralised public service jobs | built industrial sites which have been successful - growth away form Paris