Population and Settlement Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The correct descending order is Meghalaya, Gujarat, Punjab, Sikkim.

According to NFHS-5 (2019-21), the total fertility rate was about 2.9 in Meghalaya, 1.9 in Gujarat, 1.6 in Punjab and 1.1 in Sikkim, the lowest of any state.

Meghalaya was one of the few states still above the replacement level of 2.1, while Sikkim was far below it. The options that start with Sikkim or end with Meghalaya reverse this ordering.

Answer: D

A is false, but R is true.

The Assertion is wrong. In the Census data on internal migration, rural-to-rural movement is the largest migration stream in India, not a small one. It is dominated by women moving on marriage, together with seasonal movement of farm labour between villages.

The Reason, that large numbers of people from rural India migrate abroad, is accepted as true: India is the world's largest source of international migrants, many of them from rural districts. But it says nothing about the size of rural-to-rural flows within India, and in any case the Assertion it is meant to explain is false.

Answer: A

Only one statement holds, so the answer is Only one.

The Census of India defines a census town as a place without statutory urban status that meets three conditions: a population of at least 5,000; at least 75% of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural work; and a density of at least 400 persons per sq. km.

So statement 1 is right. Statement 2 is wrong because the test applies to male main workers, not the total population, and statement 3 is wrong because the density threshold is 400, not 300.

Answer: C

The Commission's answer is A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4.

Three of the pairs are standard names for informal settlements. A bustee (basti) is a slum in India, particularly Kolkata. A favela is a hillside shanty town in Brazil, especially Rio de Janeiro. A kampong is a village or urban settlement in Malaysia and Indonesia, that is, South East Asia.

That fixes B-2, C-3 and D-4, which leaves Barracas for Venezuela (A-1). The only option with B-2, C-3 and D-4 together is A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4; every other option sends Bustee, Favela or Kampongs somewhere else.

Answer: B

The correct match is the Malthusian positive checks: warfare, famine and diseases.

Malthus argued that population tends to outgrow food supply and is held back by preventive checks, which lower births (such as late marriage), and positive checks, which raise deaths: war, famine and disease.

The others are wrong. The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing is 2021-2030. The Census defines an urban settlement by a population of at least 5,000, a density of 400 per sq km and at least 75% of the male working population in non-agricultural work. And in the World Bank's 2024 classification Russia, Bulgaria and Palau moved up to high income, not down.

Answer: B

The fourth largest city would have 3,75,000 people.

Zipf's rank-size rule says that the population of the city of rank n is the population of the largest city divided by n:

\[ P_{n} = \frac{P_{1}}{n} \]

\[ \begin{aligned} P_{4} &= \frac{15{,}00{,}000}{4} \\ &= 3{,}75{,}000 \end{aligned} \]

The distractors come from using the wrong rank. Dividing by 2 gives 7,50,000, the second city; dividing by 3 gives 5,00,000, the third city; dividing by 5 gives 3,00,000, the fifth city.

Answer: D

These statements are associated with Revenstein, that is, E. G. Ravenstein.

In his 'Laws of Migration' (1885 and 1889), based on the British census, Ravenstein observed that most migrants move only a short distance, that migration proceeds step by step, that those going long distances generally head for great centres of commerce and industry, and that each current of migration produces a counter-current. The three statements in the question are among those laws.

The others developed later models. Everett Lee (1966) framed migration as a balance of push and pull factors at origin and destination with intervening obstacles. Wilbur Zelinsky (1971) proposed the hypothesis of the mobility transition linking migration to the demographic transition. Michael Todaro, presumably meant by 'Tadora', modelled rural-urban migration through expected urban income.

Answer: A

The maximum population lives between 20-40°N.

This belt holds the densely settled plains of South Asia and eastern China, along with Japan, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Europe, Mexico and the southern United States. The populous monsoon lands of India and China alone put well over a third of humanity inside it.

The southern hemisphere holds only about a tenth of the world's people, so neither 20-40°S nor 30-60°S can contain the maximum; the latter is mostly ocean, with only southern South America, southern Africa, southern Australia and New Zealand. The 40-60°N belt includes Europe, Russia and North America, but these are far less populous than the monsoon lands of Asia.

Answer: C

The pattern described is herring bone.

A herring-bone (or fish-bone) settlement grows along a main road that serves as a spine, with a series of parallel secondary roads branching from it at right angles on both sides, like the bones of a fish. Houses line the side lanes, so the plan looks like the skeleton of a herring.

A grid pattern has two sets of parallel streets crossing each other at right angles, giving a chessboard plan, rather than one main road with side roads. A cruciform pattern develops at a crossroads, with houses strung out along the four arms of a cross. An angular pattern is not a standard term for this layout. Only the herring-bone fits a single main road with parallel side roads.

Answer: B

Gentrification is settlement by the middle class.

The term was coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe what she saw in London: middle-class households moving into run-down, working-class inner-city districts, buying and renovating old houses. As property values and rents rise, the original low-income residents are gradually displaced, and the social character of the neighbourhood changes.

The low class are those displaced by the process, not the newcomers, and an ethnic community is not what defines it, although minority groups are often among those pushed out. The very rich are not the typical gentrifiers; the word itself, from 'gentry', points to the rising middle class who move in, which is why the key takes middle class.