Lab 2
Due in Monday by noon, October 24 [please send by email
attachment]
Name______Tracy
San Filipo___________________________________
1. Briefly describe the
pattern of population density in England
and Wales
in 1851.
In
1851, the areas around London, Manchester,
and Birmingham were
the focal points of high population densities; as major cities supporting the
developing industrialization of this time period, their populations had
exploded, as people migrated to them from the countryside (Map 1). Together
they created a central belt leaning towards the east of consistently higher
population trends. In contrast, the north and the west tend to have the lowest
population densities, with a few small areas of high mixed in (Map 1). These
represent the countryside with its small decreasing population, and a few
hotspots of high population around natural resources or budding
industrialization.
2.
Briefly describe one significant change to the 1851
pattern that you see in the map for 1881. If you see no significant change,
briefly support your reasoning.
In
the interval between 1851 and 1881, the high populations surrounding London and Manchester
spread towards the south eastern coast and the western coast respectively (Map
1 and 2). This may represent an enlarging of development around these cities as
continual expansion was the general trend of the time, however, the direction
may be partially in response to the proximity to the sea, as seaside resorts
were popular during the Victorian era. If this is simply a general expansion of
the cities, another relevant difference is the increase in the concentration of
high populations forming a connection between Manchester
and Birmingham
(Map 1 and 2). Additional expansions include the isolated fragments of high populations
in the southern part of the west and the eastern coast of the north broadening
to become noteworthy features (Map 1 and 2).
3.
Briefly describe one significant changes
to the 1881 pattern that you see in the map for 1911. If you see no significant
change, briefly support your reasoning.
While
more areas of high population density are emerging in some places, the overall
trends show no significant differences between these two maps (Map 2 and 3).
The further condensing of the populous to cities or sites of natural resources
is evident by the decreases in areas that would represent country and increase
in those that would represent cities or industrialized areas, but this is
simply a continuation of previous trends. The shifts of the country side to
lower population densities and the cities to higher may be discernable in the
north and west, but in general, this map does not provide a clear enough view
of change to warrant any large claims based on it.
4.
Locate on your maps one place discussed in one of Winter’s chapters 3 through 8. Briefly describe the pattern
of population density in that place over time. (A place might be as small as
one registration district or a cluster of them.)
The
County Durham was one of the places that turned
from forest and grassed areas into an industrial wasteland (Winter,
148). While the population density was already high in a concentrated area in
1851, by 1881 this area had spread down into North Riding (Map 1 and 2).
Interestingly, this expansion did not reach into the north as well as south,
with only an insignificant increase in areas to the north in 1881 (Map 1 and
2). However, by 1901, the increase in the north was becoming large enough to
consider an expansion, this time into Northumberland (Map 2 and 3). Over this
time period, the areas to the south were the ones that did not experience
growth, and in one location the population density actually decreased, creating
an island of low population density amid several high population density areas
(Map 2 and 3).
5.
Why? What explains a pattern? Study the maps below of
mineral deposits, the distribution of employment in manufacturing, domestic
service, and agriculture. Choose one of your “patterns” from above (1-3) and
one of the maps below. Then briefly describe what you see to be a geographic
correspondence between the two (there will not be any complete correspondence.”
What do you think the correspondence means?
County Durham
was rich in both iron and coal deposits, resources
readily exploited during the Victorian era by noble or wealthy landlords (Map
of mineral deposits). It was also an area where the major form of employment in
1851 through to 1901 was in manufacturing (Map of manufacturing
employment). It was also connected by
rail lines to other major industrial areas as early as 1845, although by 1876
the rail lines created a much thicker internal network (Map of rail lines).
These factors can easily account for the early concentrations of population
density in their immediate vicinity in 1851 (Map 1). The expanding rail road
network and an expansion of manufacturing are indicated by the stretching of
the high population density areas south by 1881 (Map 2). These may not
explicitly give an explanation of the shift to lower or stable populations to
the south by 1901, but the implicit one when the limited nature of
non-renewable resources such as coal or iron is there; once these resources
were depleted and a wasteland left, some areas would likely decrease in
population density, even if the manufacturing continued with rail lines
bringing in the raw materials from elsewhere.
