Why are some parts of N.America densely populated and some parts sparsely populated?
Have a look at climate first, that’s the real kicker. In Canada, the vast majority of the population lives within 200 km of the Canada-US border. It’s not entirely because people want to be as close to the US as possible, it’s because further north it’s freakin’ cold! This affects people, but it also affects the availability of food. Because there are not a lot of people living there, there is not as much industry, therefore fewer jobs, therefore cannot support as many people economically (it’s a loop). You could argue that a widget factory could just locate somewhere and then the people would come to work there, but there are also transportation costs to consider, from two angles: – the widget factory importing resources to make widgets and transporting widgets to the markets: further distance = more expensive – the climate doesn’t support agriculture as well, so food must be transported in. Perishable food = very expensive to ship (for instance, a litre of milk in Nunavut costs $4.99
