1. to remove or reduce the population of a place; to depopulate
Usage: formal or literary; transitive verb

Examples

• The war threatened to depeople entire regions of the country.
• Disease and famine depeople the village over the course of a decade.
• Urban sprawl has depeople many rural communities.
• The government's policies risked depeopling the countryside.
• Economic hardship depeople the industrial towns as workers migrated elsewhere.