Populate

Populate is a verb that refers to the act of filling something with people or things, or of making it active with data or content. It can describe the process of settling inhabitants in a place, thereby forming a population, or the addition of objects, information, or users to a system.

In geography and urban planning, to populate a city or region means to increase its number of residents or to attract settlers. The term can also describe the historical development of a place as it becomes inhabited, or the spread of people across an area.

In computing and data contexts, populate often applies to adding data to a structure or repository. Examples include populating a database table with records, populating a user interface element with items, or prepopulating a form with existing data. In software development, a script might populate sample data during testing or seed data upon deployment.

Etymology and related terms: populate derives from Latin populus, meaning “people.” Related words include population and populous; antonyms include depopulate and repopulate. In formal writing, populate is typically used with with or into, as in “populate the table with data” or “populate the form with user details.”