Spatial Distribution of Population and Urbanisation

Yoann Doignon (1, 2) , Isabelle Blöss-Widmer (3, 4, 5) , Elena Ambrosetti (6) , Sébastien Oliveau (7)

1 IDEES - Identité et Différenciation de l’Espace, de l’Environnement et des Sociétés
2 DEMO-UCLouvain - Centre de recherche en Démographie, UCLouvain
3 MMSH - Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'Homme
4 Mesopolhis - Centre méditerranéen de sociologie, de science politique et d’histoire
5 AMU - Aix Marseille Université
6 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
7 GC (UMR_8504) - Géographie-cités

Populations are not randomly distributed across the Earth's surface. Some regions are almost empty, while others concentrate with a large proportion of the human population. Analysing the spatial distribution of a population is an exercise involving geography and demography. It takes place on different scales, both global and local, as given the striking uneven distribution of populations in the Mediterranean and all over the world. This chapter will begin by describing the Mediterranean settlement, emphasising the contrasts that exist at different scales, and then identifying regularities and explanatory factors. We will end by looking at the phenomena structuring the contemporary distribution of the population: metropolisation and coastalisation.

Mots clés: Urbanisation; Settlement; Spatial distribution of the population; Coastline; Mediterranean

Domaines: Démographie; Géographie

Yoann Doignon, Isabelle Blöss-Widmer, Elena Ambrosetti, Sébastien Oliveau. Spatial Distribution of Population and Urbanisation: A Demographic Convergence?. Population Dynamics in the Mediterranean, Springer International Publishing, pp.19-32, 2023, SpringerBriefs in Population Studies, 978-3-031-37758-7. ⟨10.1007/978-3-031-37759-4_2⟩. ⟨hal-04506197⟩