Population Geography

Static population pyramids in books show a “snapshot” of the age and sex structures of a population at a given time. By putting together those static images over a period of time, it is possible to create a dynamic image of the population of a place at it changes with time.

There are a range of websites that display dynamic population pyramids. For England and Wales, try National Statistics – Population Pyramid . (External Link -You may need to download a SVG viewer onto your computer from the site in order to view this animation.)

The US Census Bureau IDB you can find Population Pyramids (External Link) for all countries in the world. This is very useful for purposes of comparison. The animations use brightly coloured bars to help you to follow each age group through time. (Strictly they should all be the same colour.)

From a website in Canada we can explore the regional differences between the Animated Population Pyramids for Canadian Provinces (External Link)

See how the Canadian population distribution has changed in the last 100 years.

While on the topic of population, take a look at the Population Clock ((External Link) to see the rapid rate of global population growth.

You can also learn much about populatuion dynamics using the Population Simulator (External Link).