Paper 2 · June 2023 · Population Geography
On Fig. 3.1, the Sahara region carries almost no population dots. What best explains this?
AThe map's key assigns Saharan territory a lower dot value than the rest of the continent, so fewer dots are needed to show the same population.
BColonial administration never surveyed the Sahara, so its population was left off the map entirely.
CThe Sahara's extreme aridity limits the agriculture that would otherwise support a farming population there.
DInternational boundaries across the Sahara are drawn so as to deliberately exclude any settled population.
Explanation
Fig. 3.1's dots represent rural population directly, at 30 000 people per dot everywhere on the map, so a nearly empty Sahara reflects a genuinely sparse population, not a mapping artefact. That sparseness follows from the region's extreme aridity, which leaves too little water to support farming at any scale.
Derived from ZIMSEC Advanced Level Geography 6037/2 Paper 2, June 2023 session, Q3