Périphéries, franges, marges ou confins ? Les « grands espaces » et leurs populations dans le monde contemporain

Contrary to the common view of an ever more crowded planet, sparsely populated areas still account for a very sizable portion of the Earth. Their importance can be approached as an objective reality by figures and databases, but can also be shown by studying the mental representations that are associated with them and that seem quite universal, pointing out a number of salient features regardless of the geographical context. In order to prove this point, this paper proposes a synthesis about the place of sparsely populated areas across the world. Our first approach is to look at their reality using figures and databases, which allows to demonstrate that more than two third of the World is populated by less than one percent of the global population. We then show how sparsely populated areas are in the middle of many geographical debates, especially those around the concepts of periphery, margin or fringes. Using these elements, we explore five features which define these areas and the life of the people living in them.