Why is Asia so densely populated?

[Dann]

Might be because for a long time, especially in the XXth century, many countries of Asia have been extremely poor. When a country is extremely poor, it almost always encourages a population boom. It's not a paradox, it's understandable. There are many factors for this. First all the families have more kids, so that more of them can survive.

It's anyway known poor people tend to have more children. Example: gypsies in Romania have 3 times as many kids as the other people. Turks in Germany have a higher natality than Germans, etc. That's the best explanation I could come up with.

Not agreeing fully with your hypothesis with regards entire peoples (China's biggest population growth spurt was in the mid-Qing, a time of affluence) but I agree to the practical reason behind poorer people having more kids than richer people.

For rich people an extra child = more expenses. Expensive food, clothing, a bigger house, education, perhaps even the child's marriage expenses when he/she grows up. Major dent into the parent's lifestyle. Can't have that. So :thumbdown

In contrast for poor people an extra child isn't that much trouble at all. Cheap food is about the only essential. No need for new clothes as he/she can just wear hand-me-downs. No need for extra housing space. Education? Luxury! The kids will be out helping earn a buck by the time they can walk. Such a quick ROI. Why not?

The world is full of irony.

 

[aneeshm]

The third option isn't very credible, it is just a guess.

Peasants in mediaeval India (for example) were much worse off, because their aristocracy took almost everything they produced.

The medieval period is not a good time to judge India by. Under the Hindu-Buddhist-Jain kingdoms preceding the Islamic invasion, taxes were, as I said, a very gentle 16.67%, with tax breaks if a village got together and built irrigation facilities for itself (no tax for a period of a few years), or if they brought barren land under cultivation (no tax for five years). The growth these incentive schemes for common people encouraged was phenomenal.

That did not mean that the state did not itself construct public works or infrastructure - roads and ferries, for instance, were to be maintained by the state. The king had three priorities - the treasury, defence, and the public good.

The cardinal rule of administration was that there must always be a slight amount of revenue which is directed towards the treasury, so that the king may later use it to tide over any difficulty. The idea was that the state's functioning should not be interrupted by even three consecutive years without any tax collected, because that is the longest time an average harvest failure can last. The king was instructed to cancel all taxes on agriculture if there was a failed harvest, and to sell his buffer stock to keep prices stable. To do that, you needed a treasury which was full.

The second rule was that the king must have an army which would provide a credible defence against realistic threats.

After that, and after administrative costs were subtracted, all the money which was left over was to be spent on infrastructure, public works, and keeping the people content.

 

[aneeshm]

That sounds logical.

What about India? Indian kingdoms have been at war almost all the time, and yet India had more people than Europe.

One of the most astoundingly positive effects of the caste system was that it localised the effects of war - most of the brunt of warfare was borne by the warrior/administrator/ruler caste, not by the common people, so people felt more secure than probably anywhere else in the world even during wartime.

The second was that the rules of war were rather strict - you weren't allowed to loot anything other than the state. They were also pragmatic - the conqueror kept most of the administrative structure intact, he merely demanded a certain percentage of revenue.

All of this led to a minimum disruption of civilian life.

 

[StarWorms]

Asia as a whole isn't as densely populated as Europe, it's just in certain areas. Many small European countries are very densely populated.

 

[Till]

I would be interested to see some charts on the demographic development of Europe compared to these of other regions. Does anyone have a good link to share?
Were Asia&India ahead from the get go, or did Europe catch up at some point before (for example) her population was decimated by a series of events in the 14th century.

 

[Mirc]

I'm guessing India was most populated for a long time, there was a greek historian who said: "The Thracians are the second largest people in the world, after the Hindus, but they are not organized, if they had a centered state, nobody in the world could stand their power. They are situated...".

Note: Translation by me, from Romanian. Might not be perfectly accurate...

 

[FriendlyFire]

Oh just realised this but:

Chinese inheritance rules were VERY different from European and persian practices. generally Persian would divided there land up evenly between sons resulting in tiny fragmented small farms. European though did pass to there choosen son though often resulted in civil wars and feuds

The Chinese though had a different system in which the next oldest would inherite the entire family land. Thus avoiding some of the more problems experienced by Europeans.

 

[innonimatu]

If you read the ArthaShastra, you'll realise why India has always had a much higher population and population density that Europe, or in fact, anywhere else in the world.

I dispute this.

The wealth of those days is hard to imagine. The lowest salary a worker for the state could draw per year was five panas, for part-time manual labour. The highest salary was sixty thousand panas, granted to the ruler's inner circle. Five panas was enough to sustain with dignity the manual labourer - imagine the wealth of the state when it could provide its top ranks with an income twelve thousand times larger - and then all the grades in between.

In general, the state of those times, before the Muslim invasion, resembled the modern state in innumerable ways. The ruler was always at the mercy of his subjects - "Keeping the people happy so that they do not revolt" is almost a mania with these authors.

You know, if this was the foremost concert of political treatises of the time, that can only mean that rebellions were a common threat, a common event. This picture you presented ifs far is too rosy. Good rule extended only to some parts of the terrytory, for some time. Like elsewhere in the world.

It is true that Asia has always been home to most of the Earth’s population. But there was a large increase in the 20th century as death rates (especially thinks such as infant mortality) plummeted before birth rates also started to decrease. It happened elsewhere in the world, but later in Asia. And while Europe, a century earlier, had exported much of its population growth (or spent it in wars) Asia, more recently, did not, to the same extent.

 

[Norseone]

Perhaps Europe has fewer people because over the last couple hundred years many of its people have been moving to other countries (USA, Canada, Australia, South America, ETC.). This could be a big part of it.

 

[Winner]

Perhaps Europe has fewer people because over the last couple hundred years many of its people have been moving to other countries (USA, Canada, Australia, South America, ETC.). This could be a big part of it.

I don't have precise numbers, but no more than 40 million Europeans moved overseas. Still not enough to have a real impact on the population proportions.

 

[aronnax]

Well lets see, the black plaque murdered so many people in europe that it took another 400-500 years for it to recover and the mongol invasion did not help eastern europe did it?

Although awlays wanting to kill each other, things are pretty stable for India and China, even when there are seperate warring states.

 

[cthom]

Might be because for a long time, especially in the XXth century, many countries of Asia have been extremely poor. When a country is extremely poor, it almost always encourages a population boom. It's not a paradox, it's understandable. There are many factors for this. First all the families have more kids, so that more of them can survive.

It's anyway known poor people tend to have more children. Example: gypsies in Romania have 3 times as many kids as the other people. Turks in Germany have a higher natality than Germans, etc. That's the best explanation I could come up with.

yep, that's what i learned at school. more children, more income.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I don't have precise numbers, but no more than 40 million Europeans moved overseas. Still not enough to have a real impact on the population proportions.

40 million in the 18-19-20th century, even with an ballpark conservative 1% growth per annum would translate to 200-300 million extra people in europe today, putting europe much nearer to the 'billion' club

 

[Winner]

40 million in the 18-19-20th century, even with an ballpark conservative 1% growth per annum would translate to 200-300 million extra people in europe today, putting europe much nearer to the 'billion' club

On the other hand, Europe needed to get rid of these people. If they had stayed, we'd have a socialist revolution on our hands

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

I think the difference between 700 million and 1.3 billion actually isn't very significant.

 

[Winner]

I think the difference between 700 million and 1.3 billion actually isn't very significant.

Well, I think the difference is twice the size of the US

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well lets see, the black plaque murdered so many people in europe that it took another 400-500 years for it to recover and the mongol invasion did not help eastern europe did it?

The Mongol invasion certainly had less of an effect on Europe than on China ...

 

[Swedishguy]

(like in Mezopotamia, Egypt, Chinese plain, Indus and Ganges river valleys, Persia, Greece etc.)

Mezopotamia? Bad condition? Could you elaborate a bit?

 

[Winner]

Mezopotamia? Bad condition? Could you elaborate a bit?

Well, you have two rivers and a desert. Without extensive irrigation and awful lot of work, the whole place is useless.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Not entirely - the northern parts receive sufficient rainfall to support agriculture without irrigation.

This may be why Mesopotamian civilization started out in the south.