高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本

Book 2 Chapter 1 The Population

Today we' re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you

probably know, the People ' s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second most populous? Well, if

you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let ' s get back to the United States. Let ' s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second

is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population.

First of all, let ' s take a look at the population by race and origin.

The latest U. S. census reports that percent of the population is white, whereas percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and percent report t hemselves as “of someother race ” . Let' s make sure your figures are right: OK, white, percent; black, percent; Asian,

3 percent; Native American, 1 percent; a mixture of two or more races, percent; and of some other race, percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in

Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up

percent of the present U.S. population, however.

Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number percent.

Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United

States? Well, I ' ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, are California, with almost 34 million; New York, with

21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with million people. Did you get all those figures down? Well, if not, I ' ll give you a chance later to check your figures. Well, then, let ' s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives in the South and in the West of the United States. This figure, 58 percent, is surprising to many people. It is surprising because the East

is more densely populated. Nevertheless, there are more people all together in the South and West. To understand this seeming contradiction, one need

only consider the relatively larger size of manysouthern and western states, so although there are more people, they are distributed over a larger area. To finish up this section on geographical distribution, consider that more

than three-quarters of the people live in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Houston. That means that only 20 percent, or 2 out of 10 people, live in rural areas. An interesting side note is that some 3,800,000 U.S. citizens live abroad, that is, in foreign countries.

Before we finish today, I want to discuss the distribution of the U.S. population in terms of age and sex. Just for interest, would you say there are more men or more