Population and Settlement
Senior 1 · Geography
Population and Settlement
Lesson 1 of 5
22 min
On 15 August 2022 Rwanda counted every person living in the country: 13,246,394 people. Figure 1 shows all of them, sorted by age and sex. Before you read on, look at the shape. Is it wide at the bottom or at the top? What does that tell you about how many children and how many old people there are?
Figure 1. Rwanda's population pyramid, drawn by Ganzaa from NISR's 2022 census counts (Main Indicators Report, Table 5), rounded to the nearest thousand.
This unit is about people: how many there are and what they are like (population), where they live (settlement) and how they move (migration).
Definition
Population: the total number of people living in a given area at a given time. Example: Rwanda's resident population was 13,246,394 on 15 August 2022.
Definition
Settlement: a place where people live, from a single homestead to a village, a town or a city, together with the buildings and services there. Example: an umudugudu (village) in Bugesera; the city of Kigali.
Definition
Migration: the movement of people from one place to another to live there, for a long time or for good. Example: a young woman moving from Nyamasheke to Kigali for work.
Definition
Census: an official count of every person in a country at one time, recording details such as age, sex, where they live, education and work. Example: Rwanda has held censuses in 1978, 1991, 2002, 2012 and 2022.
Definition
Population structure (composition): the make-up of a population by age and sex, and also by other features such as rural or urban residence, education or religion. Example: 37.4% of Rwandans were under 15 in 2022.
Definition
Population pyramid: a pair of back-to-back bar graphs showing the number (or percentage) of males and females in each age group, youngest at the bottom. Example: Figure 1.
| Age group | Who they are | People (2022) | Share of population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–14 | Children: mostly in school, dependent on adults | 4,956,812 | 37.4% |
| 15–64 | Working-age adults | 7,737,654 | 58.4% |
| 65 and over | Elderly: many no longer working | 551,928 | 4.2% |
| Total | 13,246,394 | 100% |
Source: NISR, Census 2022, Table 5; the groups are added up from the five-year age groups by Ganzaa.
Worked example 1: reading the pyramid step by step
Step 1. The base. The two bottom bars (0–4) are the longest: about 856,000 boys and 852,000 girls. A wide base means many births in recent years: a high birth rate.
Step 2. The sides. The bars shrink steadily upwards, and faster above 40–44 (from about 347,000 men aged 40–44 to 215,000 aged 45–49). Each older group is smaller because fewer people were born long ago and because some have died.
Step 3. The top. The top is narrow: only about 18,000 men and 37,000 women are 85 or over. Few people reach old age, although this is changing as health care improves.
Conclusion. Rwanda has an expanding (wide-based) pyramid, typical of a young, fast-growing population.
Definition
Sex ratio: the number of males for every 100 females in a population. . Example: Rwanda's sex ratio in 2022 was about 94.
Definition
Dependency ratio: the number of dependants (children under 15 and people aged 65 and over) for every 100 people of working age (15–64). Example: Rwanda's was about 71 in 2022.
Worked example 2: sex ratio
The 2022 census counted 6,429,326 males and 6,817,068 females. Find the sex ratio.
Answer. About 94 males for every 100 females. Females make up of the population.
Worked example 3: dependency ratio
Use the table of broad age groups.
Answer. About 71 dependants for every 100 people of working age, and nine in ten of those dependants are children. Every working adult supports, on average, about 0.7 of another person, mainly by paying for food, school fees and health care for children.
Important
Case study: what Rwanda's structure means for planning
Warning
Read the axis before you read the shape. Some pyramids show numbers of people (like Figure 1); others show percentages of the whole population. And the sex ratio compares males to females, not to the total: 94 means 94 men for every 100 women, not 94% men.
Population pyramids: Powerful predictors of the future, by Kim Preshoff for TED-Ed (5 min). Watch for the three pyramid shapes (expanding, stationary, contracting) and decide which one Figure 1 is.
Imagine Rwanda's pyramid in 2042, when today's 0–4 group is 20–24. Which age groups will be the largest? Name two things the country should start building or planning now, and explain why.
Tip
Describe a pyramid with B-S-T: Base (births), Sides (how fast the bars shrink: deaths and past births), Top (old people). Always quote at least one number from the graph with its unit.
Practice
Remember
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the lesson text, pyramid, tables, worked examples and practice.
