CREATING POPULATION DENSITY MAP

What is population density?

Population density is the number of people per unit of area, usually quoted per square kilometre or square metre or square mile units.

The population density is calculated using the formula, the total population divided by the land area covered by the population.

Importance

Cities are changing with time. Urban planning is mainly based on the density of the population not on the basis of the total population. The population density data shows us how densely populated an area is. Population density allows for a broad comparison of settlement intensity across geographic areas.

The physical factors that affect the population density include water supply, climate, relief, vegetation, soils and availability of natural resources and energy. Human factors that affect population density include social, political and economic factors.

Steps to prepare the district wise population density map.

Step 1: Downloading the shapefile of the districts in India

Visit the planning insights website and go to the open source data page, https://planninginsights.co.in/open-source-data.  

The interface of the website is shown above. Click on the Download button to download the file.

Download the “District Boundaries of India” data.

Step 2: Open the file.

Open ArcMap and click on the “Add Data” button.

Browse to the location where the file is downloaded and open the shapefile.

Step 3: Adding the district-wise population and area and calculating population density.

Now right click on the shapefile and open the attribute table. The attribute table contains the information about the shapefile.

For example, we are showing the population density of some of the districts in Maharashtra state only.

First, we have to calculate the area of the shapefile. For that, we have to convert the GCS (Geographic Coordinate System) to PCS (Projected Coordinate System).

Select Data Management Tools > Projections and Transformations > Project.

Select WGS 1984 World Mercator in the Output Coordinate System and click OK.

Now the projected shapefile will be loaded to the window.

The attribute table of the new shapefile contains shape length and shape area, but in metre and sq.m. We need area in square kilometres.

For that right-click on the Area field that we have created and click on the Calculate Geometry.

Change the unit into square kilometres and click OK.