2026-07-01http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/416389Why do larger countries have more armed conflict? This paper surveys three sets of hypotheses forwarded in the conflict literature regarding the relationship between the size and location of population groups: Hypotheses based on pure population mass, on distances, on population concentrations, and some residual state-level characteristics. The hypotheses are tested on a new dataset-ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset)-which disaggregates internal conflicts into individual events. The analysis covers 14 countries in Central Africa. The conflict event data are juxtaposed with geographically disaggregated data on populations, distance to capitals, borders, and road networks. The paper develops a statistical method to analyze this type of data. The analysis confirms several of the hypotheses.application/pdftext/plainCC BY 3.0 IGOhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/World BankARMED CONFLICTARMED CONFLICTSCITIESCITIZENCIVIL CONFLICTCIVIL WARCIVIL WARSCONFLICT RISKDEATHSDEMOCRATIC REPUBLICDISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONSEFFECTS OF POPULATIONETHNIC GROUPSFACTORSGEOGRAPHIC CONCENTRATIONHAZARD FUNCTIONHAZARD OF WARIMPORTANCE OF POPULATIONINFORMATION SYSTEMSINHABITANTSINTERNAL CONFLICTSINTERNATIONAL BORDERSLARGE POPULATIONLOCAL POPULATIONMINORITIESMINORITYMOTHERNATIONAL AUTHORITIESNATIONAL BORDERSNATIONAL LEVELPEACEPOINT OF DEPARTUREPOLICY RESEARCHPOLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPERPOLITICAL CONTESTPOLITICAL POWERPOPULATIONPOPULATION CONCENTRATIONPOPULATION DATAPOPULATION DENSITYPOPULATION DISTRIBUTIONPOPULATION GEOGRAPHYPOPULATION GROUPSPOPULATION GROWTHPOPULATION SIZEPOPULATION VARIABLEPOPULOUS COUNTRIESPOST-CONFLICTPROBABILITY OF WARPROGRESSREBEL GROUPREBEL GROUPSREBELLIONREBELLIONSRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POPULATIONRESPECTRISK OF CONFLICTRISK OF REBELLIONSIZE OF POPULATIONSSMALL COUNTRIESSOVEREIGNTYSPILLOVERTOTAL POPULATIONTOWNSTRANSPORTATIONURBAN AREASWARS