[Warning: the following may contain spoilers for the later books.]
Were the other regions supposed to be more populous?
Simple answer: yes. However Panem is still pretty small. One source suggests a total population of around 4.5 million, however that seems rather high: canon sources for the individual Districts imply a total less than 2 million.
D12 is by far the smallest and poorest district, and of the remaining 12 it is the farthest from the Capitol (although D13 was farther out). This is partly another example of Collins' basing Panem on Ancient Rome (D12 is very much on "the edge of Empire"), but there are also clearly analogies between Panem and the USA. For example, compare Delaware and Rhode Island with Texas and California (revealing fact: Suzanne Collins is from Connecticut). And of course there's a reason why there were 13 original Districts...
As to how tenable such a small population is: this is a serious point which fits with Collins' portrayal of a civilization clinging on by its fingertips. As far as we know, Panem is all that remains of humanity, and it's in that context that President Snow is able to justify his repressive regime (remember, he doesn't consider himself to be the bad guy here). Also in the later books, the small population is used as an argument against a prolonged civil war, which might push it below a sustainable level.
In the case of D12, some have questioned just how important the coal industry really is to Panem (e.g. we're shown that D5 has at least one hydro dam in
Mockingjay Part 1). It's possible that mining is only maintained as part of the Capitol's control strategy.
Despite how some non-canon maps show Panem, I like to think of the Districts as "land islands" - small city states separated by an awful lot of wilderness. D12 is a very small geographical area (really just a small town), and it's made clear in the books and films that the fence is poorly maintained. Having said that, districts like D11 are much larger, and it's implied that they are much more tightly controlled, with more heavily-manned walls combined with stricter curfews and movement restrictions.
--
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen."
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