To populate an area means to cause people to live there. Successive regimes annexed the region and populated it with lowland people. if an area is populated by a particular group of people, they live there
If an area is populated by certain people or animals, those people or animals live there, often in large numbers. Before all this the island was populated by native American Arawaks. native Sindhis, who populate the surrounding villages. = inhabit + populated popu·lat·ed The southeast is the most densely populated area + -populated -populated Shelling from federal army tanks razed half the houses in the Croat-populated part of Glina
make one's home or live in; "She resides officially in Iceland"; "I live in a 200-year old house"; "These people inhabited all the islands that are now deserted"; "The plains are sparsely populated"
populated
Turkish pronunciation
päpyıleytıd
Pronunciation
/ˈpäpyəˌlātəd/ /ˈpɑːpjəˌleɪtəd/
Etymology
[ 'pä-py&-"lAt ] (transitive verb.) 1578. Medieval Latin populatus, past participle of populare to people, from Latin populus people.