Introduction to part I

The study of population distribution, dynamics of population growth, socio-economic characteristics, and migration have been a long preoccupation of scholars. Traditionally, the study of population fell within two disciplines, with the field of population geography most interested in the spatial distribution and variations of populations (migration, mobility, settlement) while its cognate discipline of demography has focused on the population dynamics of mortality, fertility, and marriage. In recent decades, we see the boundaries between these disciplines blurred, with scholars from anthropology, economics, biology, psychology, and especially history