Wrong. In the 18 century it was 170 millions, in the 19th century it was 400 millions. So in 100 years the Chinese people were very busy... They still are, but in a different way now...
We always kill the millionth citizen
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That has almost everything to do with the geographical size, though, not density...
http://www.chinability.com/Population.htm
^^Is when China got big. Like REAL big.
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/7/98.07.02.x.html
^This is a bit more comprehensive
Until the commies took over, China was still exporting silk rugs and spices. It wasn't until the industrial revolution was adapted by the reds that you see 800million turn into 1.5 billion
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Chinas population prior to the industrial revolution was a vast majority of the world population. Since antiquity, China was host to a large population base, and during the 18th century there was little hindering the population growth except the revolts held by peasants. And I think I have a solution to the population problem if it hasn't been changed in the new expansions. The rebel army's who form are citizens of the province, so why not make the population drop from the amount of rebels killed when they're *hopefully* defeated by you or your allies, or *hopefully not* your enemies armies when they resettle into the rebelling territory.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. I remember reading about several Chinese cities in the ancient era that are believed to have been several million people in size. Rome never got much bigger than a million, and it took an empire with daily imports of grain and fish from Syria/North Africa to support even that.
[EDIT: wow a lot of people beat me to responding to this
RE: handbanana69, China had a TERRIBLE civil war in the 19th century that dramatically altered their population: the Taiping Rebellion. It severely depopulated much of the rural countryside, as it was estimated to have killed over 20 million people -- all of this before machine guns, artillery, etc. Can you imagine how nuts that must've been? I always found it darkly ironic that it was caused by Christian missionaries and the locals willing to take advantage of the faith for their own ends.
The explanation for China's population that "it was really peaceful" has never been correct. In fact, I've never read any good explanation for why the magnitude of everything in ancient Chinese history was 10x that of elsewhere, in general.]
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I don't want to go into taboo subjects but if I understand sociology correctly, more deveolloped country (I.e.: Urbanized) have lower birth rate than those that are more rural. I think it has to do with an effect of visible overpopulation but only a sociologist could answer this correctly.
China until relatively recently was very rural and that could help explain the large population base dispite their (former) poor quality of life.
Look at Africa today, their birth rate is much higher than any place else on the planet and they are about the last true un-urbanized places in the world. I'm not making a judgement on what is correct, just saying what I've heard/rread.
As proof, I went to the CIA world factbook. USA has a birth rate of 13.83/1000 inhabitant (A good rate among G20 nations) while country in Africa goes from 50 or so to 30 or so by 1000 inhabitant. China is currently at 14.00/1000 by the way. India is at 21.72
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2054rank.html
China until relatively recently was very rural and that could help explain the large population base dispite their (former) poor quality of life.
Look at Africa today, their birth rate is much higher than any place else on the planet and they are about the last true un-urbanized places in the world. I'm not making a judgement on what is correct, just saying what I've heard/rread.
As proof, I went to the CIA world factbook. USA has a birth rate of 13.83/1000 inhabitant (A good rate among G20 nations) while country in Africa goes from 50 or so to 30 or so by 1000 inhabitant. China is currently at 14.00/1000 by the way. India is at 21.72
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2054rank.html
There is a way to kill of a large PERCENTAGE of a province population, by letting it be overrun by religious zealots. They do their homework. If I can suggest a flavour, go for the animists
Not at all taboo, I'd say that's a well-established fact.
But the declining birth rates in the developed world are an entirely modern phenomenon. By %, I don't think China's population has changed any more than anywhere else in the last two centuries--sans wars and social upheaval of dramatic scale (Japanese invasion, Taiping Rebellion, Cultural Revolution). But China and the rest of the world "started" in 1800 with different initial conditions--so why is that? I've literally NEVER found any worthwhile explanation, and it's not for lack of trying.
well China was pretty isolationist so while there has been wars and revolts, it was not on the same relative scale of say the constant wars of Europe, There's also the fact that China is a pretty temperate climate so it may account for less death by diseases than say Africa or Russia and the like. It may also bu tied to their cultural heritage or something.
Honestly I've got no real ideas but those are what I consider most likely.
Honestly I've got no real ideas but those are what I consider most likely.
I think it's a little too complex for google. I always found google and other search engine for that matter, lacking when it comes to explaining stuff.
If wikipedia don't cover it, you are most likely left hanging unless it is ideological then you are bombarded by the FUD factory
If wikipedia don't cover it, you are most likely left hanging unless it is ideological then you are bombarded by the FUD factory
You probably could but the chinese allowed to post good explanations would be censored !
Seriously, i think it is because Life-expectancy, population were so high so long ago already (for a good feel of this play the very good "Emperor of the middle kingdom" by the same company as Caesar 3) and culture was somewhat diciplined, that people lived long and had many kids. I mean in europe not long ago, a family could have 14 children, but would lose as many as 8... If those 8 lived and their 14 kids lived... Population would evolve crazily, and military battles could easily be 10x more important in numbers.
Chinese people have always lived in large numbers in dense areas compared to europeans or others who could live like hermits. (true the population was not so impressive long ago, but still, ancient settlements show an CRAZY density, up to 25 people per familial housing)
Also, the culture in china has always placed less respect on the individual LONG before communism. As such, deporting millions of people, or simply killing them was not uncommon for the warlords. (read "Romance of the three kingdoms" for reference)
If you look at the bloodiest battle of history, you'll be surprised to see it was a chinese one, in the middle age (not a modern WW2 one).
Same goes for siege warfare (I always thought it was stalingrad... Wrong...)
(*mutters* : A MUCH simpler explanation would come from our good friend Freud... But i don't know if it's fit for this forum:rofl
I think it's a little too complex for google. I always found google and other search engine for that matter, lacking when it comes to explaining stuff.
If wikipedia don't cover it, you are most likely left hanging unless it is ideological then you are bombarded by the FUD factory
also, when confronted with this problem, i try Yahoo Questions. Sometimes it's worth it.
Urbanization has absolutely nothing to do with it. More developed (that is to say, richer) countries are places where building large families is not a way to supplement your income (quite the opposite,) ridiculous superstition surrounding birth control is less influential (though hardly a non-factor, at least in the US,) birth control aside from "pulling out" is easily-procured, women are more likely to have careers and therefore less likely to wed and start the babymaking factory at 15 or 16, and internet forums provide an alternative source of entertainment to bumping pelvises.
Ha.
I meant before, isn't it weird that you can't Google this and there isn't a prominent page with a substantiated answer? You'd think this is a question that a majority of people on the internet would have wondered about at some time or another.
RE: culture et al., I really think that's not true. People are people, everywhere. The mitigating circumstances in development always resolve back to extra-human things-- like climate and conditions, not "x, y, z advantageous value" held dear to the hearts of certain societies. I'm not saying those things don't matter, just that they ALMOST always don't.
Culture invariably is NOT as big a deal as people think. But that's just the point: we think it. If you ask most Chinese today for an answer to this population question, they'll say "Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution"-- which is completely wrong but, hey, that's what they _think_. And in my experience, "culture" influences much more what people say/think than what they do.And India is also huge, but nobody would make the argument that it's because India had historically-minimal plagues (*cough* malaria) and that Indian states have enjoyed exceptional life expectancies and very peaceful histories, or that India -- crossroads of the damn world -- was particularly isolationist. Quite the opposite on all counts.
No, this looks to me like a case of "different initial conditions", which is to say, much earlier settlements than elsewhere in the world. But, the archaeological record as it exists today doesn't really bear that out.
Quite odd.
Ha.
I meant before, isn't it weird that you can't Google this and there isn't a prominent page with a substantiated answer? You'd think this is a question that a majority of people on the internet would have wondered about at some time or another.
RE: culture et al., I really think that's not true. People are people, everywhere. The mitigating circumstances in development always resolve back to extra-human things-- like climate and conditions, not "x, y, z advantageous value" held dear to the hearts of certain societies. I'm not saying those things don't matter, just that they ALMOST always don't.
And India is also huge, but nobody would make the argument that it's because India had historically-minimal plagues (*cough* malaria) and that Indian states have enjoyed exceptional life expectancies and very peaceful histories, or that India -- crossroads of the damn world -- was particularly isolationist. Quite the opposite on all counts.
No, this looks to me like a case of "different initial conditions", which is to say, much earlier settlements than elsewhere in the world. But, the archaeological record as it exists today doesn't really bear that out.
Quite odd.
Oh come on lac !
As an EU3 player you should know the difference between India and China...
China unified many hundred years ago and there worse morcelling took shape of "the 3 kingdoms", india is a colonial creation. Before that, you had all those radjahs controlling meager lands like emirates. Like the HRE of Asia
Oh come on lac !
As an EU3 player you should know the difference between India and China...
China unified many hundred years ago and there worse morcelling took shape of "the 3 kingdoms", india is a colonial creation. Before that, you had all those radjahs controlling meager lands like emirates. Like the HRE of Asia
Wait, I don't get it.
So what are you saying -- that China was earlier "united" under Mongol (not even Chinese! foreign invaders!) rule by 1270 AD and this made all the difference? But the large populations pre-date that dramatically.
Are you saying there's some kind of "continuity" or "unity" between China today and "China" from the Three Kingdoms period?--Whereas India was a "colonial creation" (I read that to mean, "divided for much of its history between warring states")...?
But their populations have historically almost always been in parity. (And Indian history is much more varied than you seem to think?)
I don't follow your point. If anything, that says to me that most of what we'd call directed human endeavor (who controls x region) doesn't amount to much of anything over time.
Which is exactly what I'd expect from my background in mathematics
Well just an idea here:
What if it was linked to climate and migration?
Think about it, it would at least explain the difference between Asia vs Americas (Pre-colonial).
Asia as a whole is not such a harsh climate for those who evolved in it (and as such developed natural resistance (Not immunity of course) to local disease. I mean look at Africa, it has multiple epidemics but still far outstrip the rest of the world in population growth. Cold climate force isolation during the winter months (for an easy example of this look at how war was put on hold during winter during the dark ages) and as such like forests, slow population growth and that could at least help explain slower rate of natural growth in Europe compared to Asia/India. Also it's not like Europe didn't had epidemics too you know.
As for migration, I think it been proven now that while early human beings (after the fall of Neanderthal Man to Cro-Magon (Or the opposite?)) spread from Africa to the rest of the connected world (Europe, Asia, India and Africa) then from there it migrated to Americas but only during the last Ice Age. Such a relatively small population migration for such a large land and during such harsh condition created small populations center that were isolated from one another, again drastically reducing initial population base and as we now know, population growth is exponential factor (At least in it natural biological form) so lesser at start means less at end.
So we have the cold climate of Europe (I know the Mediterranean climate is very conformable but it landmass compared to Asia/India is minuscule) slowing down growth and I strongly believe that sharp drop in population from disease (and then immunity for subsequent descendants) is far less damaging to long term growth than the constant slowing down of growth form cold climate (and all it implicate).
I might be wrong of course but that's the way I see it honestly, India and China growth was due to climate and geological conditions, not much else. (Abundance of water and rivers which were essential to early civilizations).
What do you think?
What if it was linked to climate and migration?
Think about it, it would at least explain the difference between Asia vs Americas (Pre-colonial).
Asia as a whole is not such a harsh climate for those who evolved in it (and as such developed natural resistance (Not immunity of course) to local disease. I mean look at Africa, it has multiple epidemics but still far outstrip the rest of the world in population growth. Cold climate force isolation during the winter months (for an easy example of this look at how war was put on hold during winter during the dark ages) and as such like forests, slow population growth and that could at least help explain slower rate of natural growth in Europe compared to Asia/India. Also it's not like Europe didn't had epidemics too you know.
As for migration, I think it been proven now that while early human beings (after the fall of Neanderthal Man to Cro-Magon (Or the opposite?)) spread from Africa to the rest of the connected world (Europe, Asia, India and Africa) then from there it migrated to Americas but only during the last Ice Age. Such a relatively small population migration for such a large land and during such harsh condition created small populations center that were isolated from one another, again drastically reducing initial population base and as we now know, population growth is exponential factor (At least in it natural biological form) so lesser at start means less at end.
So we have the cold climate of Europe (I know the Mediterranean climate is very conformable but it landmass compared to Asia/India is minuscule) slowing down growth and I strongly believe that sharp drop in population from disease (and then immunity for subsequent descendants) is far less damaging to long term growth than the constant slowing down of growth form cold climate (and all it implicate).
I might be wrong of course but that's the way I see it honestly, India and China growth was due to climate and geological conditions, not much else. (Abundance of water and rivers which were essential to early civilizations).
What do you think?
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Wait, I don't get it.
So what are you saying -- that China was earlier "united" under Mongol (not even Chinese! foreign invaders!) rule by 1270 AD and this made all the difference? But the large populations pre-date that dramatically.
Are you saying there's some kind of "continuity" or "unity" between China today and "China" from the Three Kingdoms period?--Whereas India was a "colonial creation" (I read that to mean, "divided for much of its history between warring states")...?
But their populations have historically almost always been in parity. (And Indian history is much more varied than you seem to think?)
I don't follow your point. If anything, that says to me that most of what we'd call directed human endeavor (who controls x region) doesn't amount to much of anything over time.
Which is exactly what I'd expect from my background in mathematics
YES !
No but more seriously, i think you summarized what i said pretty well.
China was a huge blob for a while and peace and prosperity were more easily achieved even though they were occasional wars between regions of a greater "block" (i'm not talking about continuity per say : i dunno enough about chinese history to make such an assumption
it's what i felt from the meager infos i got here and there.)I guess they repressed their minorities better than we did and managed to impose some sort of haegemonia, favourable to stability, whereas indians had the whole "let my duchy be the greatest of all duchies !" thing going on.
Before the 19th century India used to have a slightly bigger population than China though...
And as Lac said China had a huge population long before being unified.
China was always the population center of the world. China had bloody devastating civil wars every couple of decades, The Han had 400 years of "peace" in that peace we had a devastating coup resulting in the Xin. After the Xin the Guanwu emperor still needed to kill a lot of people before he could restore the Han. From 184-->263 in China over 5/6 of it's population died. Jin brought a short peace but the "AGE OF FRAGMENTATION" otherwise known as even little governers get to be emperors and have their own wars the 5/6s get killed off even more so... to about 15/16. Desperate for peace most of the boarder regions actually switched sides to other nations. Tribal invasions and brief prosperities before more bitter and cruel conflicts. Finally the Sui restored order. Their forced labor killed millions so they get kicked out by their own people (basically) and the Tang get's formed. Here we get the second golden age of China. Barren blood soaked land get's put to the fields, and now another baby boom. It wasn't odd for people to have 15 kids. The girls became maids, wives, or concibines while the sons probably died off in wars or were too busy having more kids to care. After the Tang the We get the Song after another bloody bloody civil war. And we have the Red Turban rebellion where the leaders pretends to be Jesus Christ's brother. AKA another son of god. 20 million more people die. Song ends up short lived and the land get's cut in three. Song (south), Jurchen (Jin, north), and Xi Xia (Liang region. Those three northwest provinces that you never really look at except when they border the Oriats.) More bloody bloody wars. Yue Fei's bloody campaigns. Millions die every year, famine, plagues (China/Mongolia is the birthplace of the black death), death. The Yuans and Ming team up to get rid of the Jin. YAY! more death and devastation. Millions of chinese people who just happen to live in northern China die off. Mongolia destroys Xi Xia, and Jin get's cut in half and divided. Song, now finally able to have peace, decided. "Hey, we didn't kill enough people" and decided to declare war on the MONGOLS! and attacked the former Jin territory now, Mongol territory. Yes, Mongolia conquered China because China was stupid. They lose their northern lands and an uneasy peace is formed. But hey? why stop the killing. 3 separate envoys for peace all get completely slaughtered by the Song courts and governers. Mongolia declares war again. And yet... they offer peace? Again. After... something along the lines of 100 million people died. Now in the hands of an incompetent prime minister and a baby faced emperor they basically declare war on the Mongols again. This time Kublai Khan shows no mercy and destroys them utterly. Death ravages the land. Something along the lines of tens of millions die agian. The Yuans bring peace and propserity for... well... as long as they aren't declaring war on Japan, Tibet, and the Koreans constantly vying for independence. Then someone from the house of Zhu decides "Let's kill some Mongols" and rose up in rebellion. This rebellion kills millions upon millions of moderate and pro-mongol chinese citizens. Basically causing death and destruction on a MASSIVE scale. So... yeah. Death death death. And the Chinese get their China back. Of course, they are incompetent and can't handle the Manchurians. They avoid all peace attemps and say no to all their generals asking for reinforcements. So... they asked for their destruction. Millions more die. So sad. Qing get's formed. Oh sorry I made a factual error. THIS is where Jesus Christ's brother stages his rebellion. Silly me. more rebellions. Foreign wars over opium. Japanese wars. Russian wars. German wars. English wars. Death, death, death, death, death, death, death. Of course they turned to Opium. "I liekz Drgz" and went off on their merry way, their country became a colonial travesty where even Japan carved out pieces of their lands. Later we had "Republic of China" who caused more death, more devastation. We also had Japan carving up Japan some more during WW2. After the ROC took over China Cheng decided "I want to be Emperor Plz" and became Emperor for less than a year. During this time the PRC was killing millions on it's way towards unification. When ROC headquarters defected in Yunnan to the PRC they needed to go to Taiwan! Or formosa as it was called. But since the PRC and ROC reached a standstill and revolts haven't happened for decades they reached another baby boom. 1.5 billion? I would imagine closer to 3.3 billion if they didn't institute the policy.