Cornwalls Population Distribution Essay, Research Paper

In Cornwall there is not an even distribution of people living in Cornwall. But population density figures say that there are a certain number of people living in a sq. km. This is because it gives an average and does not take into account the large pop. density in cities and the small pop. densities in rural areas. In places like Truro there is a large population density, which is mainly richer. This is because it is the capitol of Truro and all the large chains want to put branches there. This creates lots of jobs and residents. Also it is a communications centre. This means that people can travel to their jobs but still be able to go in the other direction easily. Also there is a large portion of the people who live there for historical reasons. Even before it was the capitol of Cornwall it have been lived in since the iron age and in the Victorian age it was a small port because of the access to the sea down the Fal. All of these reasons mean that Truro is now the commercial centre of Cornwall. Falmouth has a lot of people living in it because of historical reasons connected to the castle, but also because it is the entrance to the river Fal and also in more recent times it has a large dockyard. Also it benefits from tourism in the summer because of the beaches being near the town centre. Newquay has mainly been built around the tourism industry, as it has many beaches nearby and a large town centre. It is a relatively new town and quite poor as it has no industrial economy and totally relies on the tourist industry. Nowadays though it benefits from Government subsidies. Penzance is one of the poorer areas of west Cornwall and doesn´t have much tourism economy. It has a lot of Government subsidies. Places like Redruth and Camborne were set up after a rush to the south-west for mining industries, but now that the mining has gone, the people are left. This causes mass unemployment in these towns, as they were built around an extinct industry. The Government is putting a lot of money into trying to encourage people into the area with subsidies for businesses. St. Austell is mainly built around the china clay mines that are next to the towns. They have brought some jobs but unemployment is still quite high in St. Austell.

In the rural areas though there are farm that have over 1km sq. of land but only have I family living there. Also outside of the main towns and cities mentioned above are lots of smaller towns and villages scattered around the countryside. In the west of Cornwall there is a lot of fertile soil for farming but in places like Bodmin moor, which very rugged and harsh, most of the land is into suitable for settling or farming on.