Semakan pada 05:42, 3 Jun 2013

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Dalam banci, terdapat perbezaan antara penduduk bermastautin¹ atau penduduk de jure¹ bagi sesuatu kawasan, yang terdiri daripada penduduk yang biasanya tinggal di kawasan tersebut, dan penduduk sebenar², atau penduduk de facto² adalah penduduk yang berada di kawasan tersebut pada hari banci. In the resident population, temporary absentees⁴ are included with those permanent residents³ who are present in the area on census day; the actual population consists of residents together with visitors⁵ or transients⁵. The two methods of enumeration will give different results even for the country as a whole. The place where a person lives is called the place of residence⁶. For administrative reasons, certain persons who live together in large communities (i.e. boarding schools, military persons in barracks, prisoners, etc. (cf. 110-5*) are often separately enumerated. These persons form the institutional population⁷. Special rules are used to enumerate vagrants⁸ or persons of no fixed abode⁸.

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In many countries a rural area¹ is defined as an administrative district in which the population size is below a certain level (often taken as 2,000). Other areas are called urban areas². The rural population³ is the population living in rural areas, the urban population⁴ that living in urban areas. Criteria for allocating the population of particular areas to the rural or urban sector respectively differ in different countries. Certain definitions of rural and urban population may lead to distinguish an intermediate category referred to as the semi-urban population⁵.

• 3. Rural, adj. - realization, n.: growth in the proportion of persons living in rural areas.
  Rural population should not be confused with agricultural population or farm population (359-2).

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The density of population¹ or population density¹ is an index showing the relation between a population and the area in which it lives. The simplest density index² is obtained by dividing the total population by the area of the territory and is generally expressed as the number of persons per acre, square kilometre or square mile. The scatter of the population³ depends on the type of settlement⁴, grouped settlement⁵ or dispersed settlement⁶. Some writers have computed the population center⁷ of a given area by the methods used to find the center of gravity in applied mathematics; each individual in the population is given an equal weight.

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Where the pattern of settlement of different populations is to be compared and other factors besides surface area are taken into account, comparative density indices¹ are sometimes computed. There are various such indices, among which we may mention the density of population per unit of cultivable area² and the density of the agricultural population per unit of cultivable area³. Occasionally these indices are based on the cultivated area⁴ rather than the cultivable area⁵. The density may also be expressed as a relation between population and total economic resources; the maximum potential density⁶ or population carrying capacity⁶, showing the relationship between resources and the maximum population that can be supported with these resources, may be considered. The concept of optimum density⁷, i.e., the density which will give the maximum real income per head with given resources, is used in population theory.

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