Introduction: the Trewartha challenge

2001; Findlay, 2003; Gober and Tyner, 2004). This special issue of Population, Space and Place adds to these reflections, and is born out of a Plenary session of the Population Specialty Group held at the 2003 meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans to mark the 50 anniversary of Trewartha’s address. The five papers that follow are authored by accomplished population geographers at different points in their careers representing different theoretical and methodological orientations. The papers reflect on the growth and maturing of this subfield over the past 50 years, examine where we are today in the context of Trewartha’s call to population geographers, and identify challenges and promising research agendas as we move into the next 50 years of population geography.