Analysis Of Africa’s Urbanisation Based On Night Time Lights

The United Nations have published information stating that the world population reached the7billion mark towards the end on the year2011.(UN System Task Team on the Post-2015UN Development Agenda:Sustainable Urbanization.[1]It was also established that the6billion mark was reached12years before the7billion mark was. Statistics also state that it took more than a century,123years to be exact for the world population to grow from1billion to2billion. The same source tells us that it took33years to reach the3billion mark from2billion. So it seems that it takes less and less time for the world population to increase by1billion. Since the earth does not increase in size, we realize that our living space is becoming smaller and smaller day-by-day and the density is increasing heavily. It becomes important to look into the allocation of the world population. Going back to the same source, we notice that back in the day, most of the world population was living in rural area. It’s only in recent years that the balance has shifted. It is in2007that half of the world population started to live in urban cities and towns. This is to say that urbanization is an important factor in today’s life and we need to look into it very closely to manage all the consequences and advantages that come with it.[2]As the population is growing, the number of people migrating to developed town and cities for work and settlement is increasing. Being already heavily populated, it is becoming increasing difficult to accommodate large number of migrating population. Apart from population, the businesses and industries also find it expensive to operate in these cities. Therefore they look for alternative locations in the sub cities of the country.(Fair wood:New City development)[3]Let us mention that there seems to be a great relationship between urbanization and population density, urbanization and economic growth, urbanization and the density of the night time light etc. Concerning the urbanization and population density relationship, data are provided by the United Nations Statistics Division.[4]At this point, it is imperative to understand what ’Density’ is. We have defined density as the number of inhabitant per square kilometer of a territory. In other words, density is the number of inhabitant living on a given portion of ecosystem. Density can be used for any tangible objects, but the definition above is often applied to living things.[5]A population density is often expressed in terms of individuals per unit of surface. It is calculated by dividing the number of inhabitants by the area in square kilometer or hectares. e.g. Number of inhabitants (?) area (in km2)=number of inhabitant/km2. A concrete example would clarify this definition. In Kenya for instance, the density is:379538401(inhabitants)(?)582650(km2)=about65(hab/km2). We could then say that Kenya has the population density of about65inhabitants per square kilometer.[6]...