This document discusses factors that influence population fertility rates. It defines key terms used to measure fertility, including crude birth rate, general fertility rate, and total fertility rate. It explains that fertility is influenced by sociocultural factors like women's status and education level, economic factors like the cost of children, and spatial patterns seen globally with higher birth rates in Africa versus other regions. A map shows the distribution of the world's births by territory in 2000, and two charts show diverging fertility trends and the places with the lowest fertility worldwide.