| Abstract: | After the first great population movement to northern Kazakhstan in the period 1953–1958 in conjunction with the start of the virgin-lands cultivation program, a period of reordering and restructuring of rural settlement within the region set in during 1959–1963. Three types of settlement areas are distinguished: (1) in areas of predominantly old settlement (preceding the virgin-lands program), the increase of rural population during this five-year period was below the average rate of natural increase for northern Kazakhstan as a whole; there was a net-outmigration from rural to urban areas and to other parts of northern Kazakhstan, (2) in areas of combined old and new settlement, population increase was more significant and there was a noticeable reduction of small populated places and increase in the number of larger places, (3) in areas of predominantly new settlement, where the density of population is lowest, the rate of population increase is highest, and settlement is mainly in widely spaced larger places. |
