Answer: People prefer areas with a moderate, comfortable climate; extreme climates discourage settlement, so climate decides where population is dense or sparse.
- Climate (temperature and rainfall) affects human comfort, agriculture, water supply and health, so it is a major physical factor in population distribution.
- Regions with moderate temperature and adequate rainfall, such as the monsoon lands of South and South-East Asia, Western Europe and the eastern USA, support agriculture and industry and are densely populated.
- Very cold regions (Arctic tundra, Antarctica, Siberia), very hot and dry deserts (Sahara, Kalahari, Thar, Australian desert) and very hot and humid equatorial forests (Amazon, Congo) are unfavourable for human life and farming, so they are sparsely populated.
- Thus climate largely controls whether an area is densely or sparsely populated.
