To populate means to fill a place with people or living things. When pioneers populated the American West in the 1800s, they moved there and built towns where few settlers had lived before. When scientists talk about animals that populate a forest, they mean the deer, birds, squirrels, and other creatures that live throughout it.

You can see this idea in related words like population (all the people living in a place) and populous (crowded with people). A densely populated city like New York has millions of residents, while a sparsely populated region like rural Alaska has very few.

In technology, populate means to fill something with information or items. A teacher might populate a spreadsheet with student grades, or a game designer might populate a virtual world with characters and obstacles. When you create a contact list on your phone by adding all your friends' numbers, you're populating that list.

The word suggests filling something that was empty, or adding more to make something fuller and more complete. Whether it's people settling a new land, animals thriving in a habitat, or data filling a database, populate describes that process of bringing life, activity, or substance to a space.