Population geography for science and practice

Abstract

Demographic potential is a necessary condition of any human activity. Its dynamics (migrations) releases resources of social activity. Therefore population (human) geography is connected with various geographical disciplines such as settlement geography, social geography, political geography, regional geography, geography of culture, historical geography, ecology and others. It is an implicational discipline - the base for other geographical disciplines and such sciences as psychology, sociology, medicine, economy and town-planning. It is also an applicational discipline, which means that it has a universal character. It serves the science but also the policy. It is a tool of multisemantic features and high political usefulness. The knowledge of population structures and processes makes it possible firstly to distinguish: 1) social-economic character of the region; 2) regional economic differentiation of the state (continent, world); 3) level of urbanisation and its stages and secondly it is: 4) the tool of social policy - it balances job market; 5) the tool of economic strategy - efficiency of human activity; 6) prognostic category in many spheres: demographic, sociological, economic.