Pop density before the 1870s was generally low in most places with a few exceptions. After all there was no "industry" it was 95% + agrarian, pescatarian, past

Pop density before the 1870s was generally low in most places with a few exceptions. After all there was no "industry" it was 95% + agrarian, pescatarian, pastoral. Many populations had a preference for coastal, riparian settlements and mountainous areas were less favored... but were where displaced peoples could move to. People clumped, they were not evenly distributed so any region would have unsettled areas --just like today you have vast areas in Alaska that are not populated -even Wyoming. There are towns here and there but most areas of those states are not "populated" though they are under local, state and federal control. Government did not work that way back a few hundred years ago. The Zulu only relatively recently moved into ZA (around the same time as Europeans maybe a bit before --the Khoisan are the native peoples of ZA).