3.5 Population and Phone Lines
In this section of the assignment, you will explore the world population through the lens of communication (phone lines) availability. By the end of this assignment, you should be able to:
- Evaluate the number of phone lines relative to the number of people in the world’s most populous countries.
- Compare the spatial patterns of countries with land phone lines to mobile phones.
What did the number of phone lines look like across the globe?
Step 1: Go to the ArcGIS Online map, Populations and Phone Lines, and explore the map.
Step 2: With the Details button underlined, click the button, Show Contents.
Step 3: Check the box to the left of the layer name, World Phone Land Lines.
Step 4: Click the layer name to see the available options, and then click the button, Show Legend.
Geographic Questions
- Which two countries have the highest number of phone landlines?
- On which continent are most the countries with the fewest phone lines?
What did global population patterns look like after 2015?
Step 5: Turn on the layer, World Countries Population, and view the legend.
Geographic Questions
- Which two countries have the largest population?
- Which countries have the same population class (color) as the United States?
Step 6: Turn off the World Countries Population layer.
Geographic Question
- Which of the five countries, if any, are in the same phone line class (color) as the United States?
What is the relationship between the population of China and the number of phone lines?
Step 7: In the map, click China to answer the following questions, using the arrow in the top-right corner of the pop-up view information.
Geographic Questions
- What was the population of China in 2015?
- How many phone lines did China have in 2015?
Step 8: Divide the population of China by the number of phone lines. This number is the number of people per phone line in China in 2015.
Geographic Question
- What was the number of people per phone line in China (rounded to two decimal places)?
What is the relationship between other high-population countries and the number of phone lines?
Step 9: Click India, United States, and Bangladesh to answer the following questions.
Geographic Question
- What was the population, number of phone lines, and number of people per phone line for these countries?
Is there more access to mobile phones than landline phones?
Step 10: Turn off the World Phone Land Lines layer, turn on the World Mobile Phones layer and view its legend.
Geographic Questions
- Click each of the four previously identified countries and compute the number of mobile phones per person.
- How does the number of people per mobile phone compare to the number of people per landline phone?
