The current demography of the Northern Territory
Key ideas:
- Definition of demography;
- Current demographic composition of the Territory.
Introduction
The people of the Northern Territory in the 2000s continue to represent a very broad cultural landscape. Demographically the NT is unique in many respects – quite different from the rest of the country.
Demography
Demography is the science of population and demographers study the characteristics of groups of people and the trends of change in things like population growth, density, and distribution. In its most general meaning, a population is a set of people who live in a specific land area: a commune, a district, a country or continent. Using demography in a formal, practical sense, the use of population data can help us understand the Northern Territory by understanding the population distribution so that we realise how many people live in remote areas and that the population is relatively young. We can also study the age at which racial groups die. All of these statistics and many others covering similar fields help build an overall picture of the region in which you live, work or study.
A bright future
The Territory has a bright future. It is young as the current demography shows:
On Census Night, 7 August 2001, there were 210,664 people (110,176 males and 100,488 females) counted in the Northern Territory. An increase of 15,563 people (8.0%) since the 1996 Census. The median age of people in the 2001 Census was 30 years whereas in the 1996 Census the median age of people was 29 years and in the 1991 Census it was 28 years.
(Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Discussion
In the 'Download' section of Learnline for CUC107, you will find two tables which contain statistical data about the Northern Territory and Australia in general. Have a look at both tables (you'll need to have Microsoft Excel to view the data) and take note of the differences between the population of the NT and that of Australia as a whole.
After looking at the statistics, choose four adjectives to describe the characteristics of the NT population that make it different from the broader Australian population? Why are the Northern Territory population statistics different? Provide some reasoning for why the differences might exist.