Heavily populated vs Highly populated

[Littledragon]

Sudan is the Arab word for ''land of the blacks'', but only the southern part of the country is ______ populated by black Africans.

A)gradually
B)heavily
C)highly
D)greatly
E)fluently

The answer is given as heavily. But also highly sounds correct to me. Are there two correct answers?

Thanks in advance.

[Ralf]

Unfortunately not. You could say 'densely', though.

'Highly' means as much as 'well considered' or 'thought well of'.

People speak very highly of the highly decorated general.
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[Littledragon]

Thank you for your clarification.

[Yankee]

I agree that 'heavily' would be the natural choice in your sentence, littledragon.

'Highly' can be used to mean 'more/larger than the usual amount/degree/level'. Here are some additional collocations for 'highly', for example:

- highly acclaimed
- highly exaggerated
- highly leveraged
- highly polarized
- highly polished
- highly qualified
- highly recommended
- highly simplified
- highly skilled
.

[Littledragon]

OXFORD COLLOCATIONS| dictionary for students of English
populated adj.
VERBS be
ADV. densely, heavily, highly, thickly the most densely populated part of the island | sparsely, thinly
PREP. with The prison was populated with people of every trade and profession.

Oxford Collocations says that "highly" collocate with "populated". Could you please clarify this?

[Yankee]

Hi littledragon

I would say the word 'highly' tends to suggest 'more than usual' (see my previous post). However, your sentence needs a word that basically means 'very'.
.

[Littledragon]

Thank you very much Ralf and Amy. I am so grateful to you for your invaluable contribution.