14299936761.pdf

Cohn MeEvedy andPichai4f Jones Atlas of

WorldPopulationHistory

Ej Facts On File119 West 57th StreetNew York, N.Y. 10019

Contents

Introduction 9

Note to the American Edition II

Published in Great Britain byPenguin Books Ltd. and Allen Lane The Beginning 13Copyright © Cohn McEvedy and Richard Jones, 1978, 1979 Part IAll rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, EUROPEelectronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording or by any information storage and retrieval Overview 19system, without permission in writing from thePublisher. Area I The British Isles 412 Scandinavia 50Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data 3 France 55McEvedy, Cohn. 4 The Low Countries 61

Atlas of world population history. 5 Germany 67Bibliography: p.357 6 Poland 73Includes index.I. Population—History. 2. Population—Statistics. 7 Russia-in-Europe 78

3. Population—Charts, diagrams, etc. I. Jones, 8 Czechoslovakia 83Richard. joint author. II. Title. 9 Switzerland and Austria 86tin 851.M32 312 78-16954ISBN 0.87196-402-3 10 Hungary 92II Romania 95

12 Iberia 9913 Italy 10614 The Balkans 110

Printed in Great Britain IS The Islands (Cyprus, Malta, Iceland, the Azores,Madeira and the Canaries) 115

Part 2ASIA

Overview 123

Area I The Near East 1332 Russia-in-Asia 1573 Mongolia 1644 China 166

Part 3

5 Korea 1766 Japan 1797 The Indian Subcontinent8 South-East Asia 190

AFRICA

Overview 207

Area I The Maghreb 2192 Libya 2243 Egypt 2264 Ethiopia 2305 Somalia 2346 Sudan 2357 The Sahel States 2388 West Africa 24!9 Equatoria. Zaire and Angola 247

10 East Africa 250II South-Central Africa 25412 Mozambique 25613 Southern Africa 25814 The Islands ofthe Western Indian Ocean 264

Part 4

Area I Australia 3272 Melanesia 3303 Polynesia 3344 New Zealand 337

Part 6

GLOBAL OVERVIEW

Appendix I Reliability 353Appendix 2 Historiograpliy 354General Bibliography 357Index 363

THE AMERICAS

Overview 271

Area I Canada 2832 The Continental USA 2863 Mexico 29!4 Central America 2945 The Caribbean Islands 2976 Colombia. Venezuela and the Guyanas 3027 Brazil 3068 Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay 3109 Argentina, Chile and Uruguay 313

Part 5

OCEANIA

Overview 32!

6

Introduction

The aim of this book is to provide figures for the population of eachcountry in the world at regular intervals through historical time. By countries we mean the nations of the present day, their areas defined by thefrontiers of 1975. Throughout the book ‘now’ ‘at present’ and ‘today’ meanas of 1975.

The primary method of display is by graph. Every graph has the samehorizontal axis, a time base that runs from 400 BC to AD 2000. There aretwo changes in this scale, one at AD 1000 and one at AD 1500. The verticalscales are varied from graph to graph in order to accommodate populations of different sizes.

The qualities of this type of graph are fairly obvious: the main deficiencyis that there is no reliable visual clue to changes in the rate of increase of apopulation. Both the populations plotted in the graph opposite increase atthe same rate from 1500 to 1800 as the figures show, they double everycentury but because one starts off at four times the size it appears to beincreasing faster.

The numbers labelling the population curves give the size of theirpopulation in millions, i.e. 160 means 160,000,000. Numbers standingalone correspond to the solid circles on the population curve and to dateson the horizontal scale. When figures for 1875 and 1925 are given, as theyusually are, they are in brackets: the two populations in the graph, forexample, are shown as having populations of 270 million and 65 million in1875.

All figures are rounded on the following system: below one million to thenearest UI million, between one and 10 millions to the nearest 0~25 million,between 10 and 20 millions to the nearest 05 million and between 20 and100 millions to the nearest million. Above 100 million the rounding is tothe nearest 5 million, above a billion (the word is used in the Americansense of 10°) to the nearest 25 million.

Figures below 01 million are not graphed at all.Accompanying each graph is a commentary which attempts to put some

flesh on these bones. Figures are again in millions, ten million being writtenas lOm and a hundred thousand as 0lm. There is no discussion in thecommentary of the sources for the figures quoted and because it is

9Time

tedious to read prose that contains too many words like ‘around’, ‘about’,‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, ‘could be’, and ‘might’ little indication of their reliability. At the end of each commentary is a paragraph headed ‘PrimarySources’ which gives a guide to the primary sources where they exist. Asecond paragraph headed ‘Bibliography’ gives the most important secondary sources. In the case of works that are referred to only once thereference is given in full: where the book or article referred to appears inseveral of the bibliographical paragraphs the author’s name is marked withan asterisk and the full reference is to be found in the General Bibliographyat the back of the book.

In some instances the populations of past kingdoms and empires aregiven on supplementary graphs: a short explanatory paragraph usuallyaccompanies these. Their location is not always obvious: the Kingdom ofFrance and the Napoleonic Empire will be found under ‘Europe Area 3France’ but the Roman Empire is discussed and illustrated in ‘Europe:Overview’, and the peak figure for the British Empire is on a graph whichcompares the Chinese Empire with other top-ranking empires. The onlysure way to find these historical asides is to use the index.

It has already been made obvious that the organization of the book isgeographical. The five main sections cover the continents: Europe, Asia,Africa, the Americas and Oceania. For each continent there is a generalaccount labelled ‘Overview’. Then there is an area by area survey of thecontinent with sub-division into countries. This means that there are hugeredundancies in the text. This has to be if each commentary is to stand onits own, and it seems to us necessary that it should.

For this is essentially a reference book. It ought to be possible for anenthusiast to read through the Overviews in a few sittings, but no one isgoing to be able to read more than a few of the area surveys withoutboggling his mind. One at a time is the way to take them.

Even cautious users may well find this a boring book; academics arecertain to find it irritating as well. There are many countries whose populations are not known with any certainty today. When we start giving figuresfor the dim and distant past, better-qualified hackles than ours are going torise.

We obviously feel the book worthwhile or we wouldn’t have written it.We have also become confident as the work has progressed that there issomething more to statements about the size of classical and early medievalpopulations than simple speculation. The upper and lower limits imposedby common sense are often much closer together than might be thought. Infact, when all the various fuzzy approaches have been made, one is usuallyleft with an answer that is fairly certain within an order of magnitude.History is a progressive study in that it does accumulate data. We arebeginning to get a good idea of the scale of society in classical times, of the

densities at which nomadic peoples lived and of the scope of neolithicagriculture or medieval industry.

So even when there are no data that can be used to calculate a population figure we are far from helpless. There are always guidelines. Forexample, the fact that population doubled in most European countriesbetween AD 1000 and 1300 can be taken as strong evidence for it doing soin other European countries for which direct evidence is lacking. Indeed,the family of curves in this book constitute a sort of null hypothesis inthemselves. Consistency, of course, provides comfort rather than proof andwe wouldn’t attempt to disguise the h)’pothetical nature of our treatmentof the earlier periods. But we haven’t just pulled figures out of the sky.

Well, not often.

NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

Population and area figures in this volume follow the European style ofnotation. Thus, 3Om means 3.0 million. 6.76m k& means 6.76 millionsquare kilometers, or 2.61 million square miles following the standardequivalence of 2.59 square kilometers per square mile.

The Beginning

The first hominids appeared in Africa around 5 million years ago. Themain difference between them and their predecessors, the apes, lay in thefact that they walked on two legs, for though apes can stand up if theyhave to, they normally get about on all fours. The hominids by contrastnever used their hands for weight-bearing. Being reasonably intelligentthey soon found other jobs for these free hands, a process of discovery thateventually culminated in tool-making, the distinctive activity of man. (Itseems to be no good having free hands unless you’re as intelligent as anape. Bipedal animals lower down the vertebrate scale, like Tyrannosaurusand the kangaroo, simply let their arms atrophy.)

The acquisition of programmes for the hominids’ new repertoire ofactivities appears in the evolutionary record as an increase in brain size.After 2 million years the cranial capacity had increased by 5000 from the600 cc of the first hominid, Australopithecus, which is little more than the500 cc of the gorilla, to the 900 cc of the primitive man named Homoerectus (Pithecanthropus). The final increase to Honio sapiens’ current average of 1,450cc appears to have taken place about 100,000 years ago.

The great apes of today are not very numerous. The gorilla populationhas been estimated as about 70,000 on the basis of their known range andfield work suggesting an average density of one per km2. The smallerchimpanzee lives at rather higher densities than this, say three or four tothe kmz. As the chimpanzee has a range near ten times that of the gorilla,the total number of chimpanzees is probably well over the million mark.These numbers can be taken as upper and lower limits for theAustralopithecine population of two or three million years ago with thebetting on the lower end of the range. (For ape densities see GeorgeSchaller, The Year of the Gorilla 1965, pp. 104, 200.)

The appearance of the first man, Homa erectus, coincides with a greatextension of geographical range. Whereas Australopithecus had beenconfined, so far as we know, to Africa, remains of Homo erect us have beenfound from Europe to Indonesia. As it is unlikely that he had invented theclothing and other cold-weather techniques necessary for living in theArctic (if he had, he would have discovered the Bering Straits andAmerica) we can estimate his total range as the Old World south of

13

latitude 50 north, minus Australia. This is roughly 68m km2. If a quarterof this range was actually habitable and we take a figure for density of Iper 10km2, we get a population estimate for Home credits of 17 million.

Why the figure of I per 10 km2 when the gorilla, an animal of roughlycomparable size to Home erectus, lives at densities ten times greater thanthis? The reason is that as the hominids evolved they moved along whatecologists call the ‘food chain’. All biological energy ultimately derivesfrom the photosynthetic processes of plants: these are consumed by her~bivorous animals who are preyed on by carnivores. As each digestion andre-synthesis has an efficiency of only a few per cent, a move from herbivoreto carnivore status necessarily involves a decline in population per unitarea.

Gorillas are pure herbivores; their days are spent literally munchingtheir way through the forest. Primitive man always retained some vegetableelement in his diet and often the vegetable element dominated. But whenopportunity offered, man was at least a 5000 carnivore. He had shiftedalong the food chain: he could not even digest the most abundant vegetablefoods such as grasses and leaves, and as a result his density must have beenan order of magnitude lower than that of the gorilla.

This is a theoretical argument, but the densities it suggests I per 10km2 of habitable terrain, 2 or 3 per 100 km of total area are supported bythe figures for human populations that have continued to live at apalaeolithic level in modern times, most particularly the aborigine population of Australia.

We do not need to alter either our density estimate or our figures fortotal population when Home credits yields to Home sapiens. Perhaps weought to bring the population figure down a bit after 75,000 ~c, when thelast Ice Age began and Arctic conditions clamped down on what hadpreviously been a comfortable part of man’s habitat. But Homo sapienseventually learned to do what Homo crcU us never had: to live and love in acold climate. This had important results, for when the ice retreated bandsof hunters followed the herds of mammoths right into the Arctic Circle.There they discovered the land bridge that existed in the Bering Straitregion at certain periods during the Ice Age. Perhaps as early as 25,000 Bc,perhaps not until 10.000 BC. these hunters penetrated into North America:certainly they spread across both Americas within a few centuries of thesecond date. And well before this other pioneers had completed the journeyalong the Indonesian archipelago to Australia.

The extension of mankind into northern latitudes and to the Americasand Australia effectively doubled his territory. What with better weather aswell, the population in 10,000 BC was probably rather more than doublewhat it had been in 100,000 ac. So, as the ice caps finally melted away, thehuman population must have been approaching the 4 million mark. This

14

was good progress, but the gain had been achieved almost entirely byextension of range and the limit of this process had now been reached.Further advance would only be achieved via higher densities.

The way in which this was done was by shifting back along the foodchain: man discovered that, although there were only a few plants that hecould eat, he could get enough of them together to see him through theyear if he planted them out himself This is the essential element in thechange in the life styles that has been variously named the ‘neolithic revolution’ because anthropologists use it to divide the palaeolithic (Old StoneAge) from the neolithic (New Stone Age) and the ‘agriculturalrevolution’ because with the appearance of this food-producing activitythe food-gathering activities that had previously been man’s only means ofsubsistence became obsolete. The where and how of the agriculturalrevolution are still hotly debated. Multicentric theories are gaining groundat the expense of the old idea of a single originating focus in the Near East.However, we can step aside from this issue at least temporarily, for now wediscard our global viewpoint and begin a continent by continent and areaby area survey of the planet.

Fig. I. I Europe. subdivision into areas

IalbIc22a2b2c2d344a4b567S

9a9b10II12I 2aI 2b‘314I 4aI 4bl4cI 4dI 4e

HUNGARYROMAN IAIBERIASpainPortugalITALYTHE BALKANSYugoslaviaAlbaniaGreeceBulgariaTurkey-in-Europe

The following islands are grouped under the heading Area IS

Part One

Europe

9 SWITZERLANDAND AUSTRIASwitzerlandAustria

THE BRITISH ISLESEngland and WalesScotlandIrelandSCANDINAVIADenmarkSwedenNorwayFinlandFRANCETHE LOW COUNTRIESBelgium and LuxembourgThe NetherlandsGERMANYPOLANDRUSSIA-IN-EUROPECZECHOSLOVAKIA

ISa CyprusI Sb Malta15c Iceland

I Sd The Azoresl5e Madeira151 The Canaries

EUROPE: OVERVIEW9-6m km2(excluding the islands of Area 15)

The first Europeans, t unters of the Old Stone Age, never amounted tomore than 100,000 at the best of times; at the worst specifically during thecold phases of the last lee Age there were considerably fewer than that.The ending of the lee Age offered the chance of escape from this depressingpattern: during the better weather of the following mesolithic period (10th6th millennia nc) numbers rose past the previous best, finally inching up tothe quarter million mark. Then came the great leap forward, the neolithicrevolution of the 5th millennium. This carried the total over the million. Italso created the first important distinction between styles of settlement, for,whereas the food-gatherers of the Old Stone Age had rarely achieved densities as high as 01 per km2, the New Stone Age food-producers ordinarilylived at densities of I per km2. By the time these agriculturalists hadcompleted their colonization of southern and western Europe say by 3000BC the continent’s population was more than 2m.

During the next millennium the various developments which togetherraised society into the Bronze Age began to infiltrate Europe from the NearEast. The entry point was Greece, the transmission was by sea and the endresult was not only another increase in numbers but another change in thepattern of distribution. The increase in numbers was steady, if slow bymodern standards: by 2000 BC the European total had reached 5m, by1000 nc lOm. The change in distribution was due to the Mediterraneancountries’ disproportionately large share in the increase. Their greater prosperity was probably a reflection of the fact that the agricultural improvements of the era had been developed in the Near East and worked bestwhere the climate was most similar, but there will also have been a reinforcing effect from the development of the Mediterranean as a naturalhighway. Whatever the cause, by the end of the Bronze Age in 1000 BC, thedensity of population was higher than the European average by a factorof 3 in Greece and more than 2 in Italy (Fig. 1.3). This is the demographicbackground to the emergence of classical society.

Greece set the pace. Between 1000 BC and 400 BC the population ofEurope doubled, increasing from lOm to 20m: in the same period thepopulation of Greece tripled, reaching a final total of 3m. This was anamazing figure for the era. It goes a long way towards explaining why

19

700

Europe

600

500 • 0

S

400

II

200

100

80

60

40

20

-III

1

Q0 0000000000000000000000 ~ 000000000 0k’) 010010010010•02 ~ CO t~ ~ 0)o 0 .—‘ — .—‘ —

1975’

Fia I 7 Furnn~ ennilnenial total

Inhabitants per km’ Inhabitants per km

Fi . 1.4 Europe, population densities in AD 200

19 or morelOto 184— average 945 to9less than 4~5

Greece so tiny on the map — was able to rebuff, counter-attack andfinally, under the leadership of Alexander the Great, conquer the far largerPersian Empire: it had the manpower. It also had the problems that gowith population densities at the Malthusian limit: pointless squabbling athome punctuated by lemming-like rushes abroad. Alexander’s success inconquering Asia Minor resolved the situation. The population of thehomeland had already stopped growing: now, as the pull of privilegedopportunity abroad was added to the push of overcrowding at home, itactually began to fall. Between 300 ec and AD I numbers dropped from3m to 2m: the density of settlement fell from more than 4 times theEuropean average to less than twice.

Even as Alexander set out for the east the focus of interest in Europe wasshifting west, to Italy. This was the boom country of the years immediatelybefore and after 300 nc and the beneficiary of the boom was the city at thecentre of it, Rome. In conquering the peninsula and its 4m people Romecreated a political unit that completely outclassed all others in Europe. Theimmediate consequence was war with the only other major power in thewest Mediterranean. Carthage: the end result was the Roman Empire,

which eventually expanded to include the entire Mediterranean basin.Success fed on itself: as the tribute of four dozen provinces flowed into themetropolitan area, Italian population densities rose past the best Greekfigures. By AD I there were 7m people in Italy and this at a time when allEurope only contained 31m.

The Roman Empire prospered until AD 200, by which time it had some46m subjects, including 28m of the 36m people in Europe (Fig. 1.5). Thiswas the high spot. It was followed by a slump which got steadily worseover the next four centuries. Numbers followed the economy down, withthe European total dropping to 26m by AD 600 25”~ less than the AD 200peak. The decline was general, which at first sight suggests that it couldhave been caused by a deterioration in the climate. This is not really a verylikely explanation. It is clear that the drop in population was greater in theMediterranean countries than in the north of Europe, which is the oppositeof what one would expect to happen if the weather got colder. It looks verymuch as though classical society had simply over-expanded and that theretreat was a reaction to this. Whatever the cause the new trend haddramatic results. The Roman Empire declined and fell, classical civilization

21

5 or more

25 to54—average 251-25 to 2-5less than 1-25

Fig. 1.3 Europe. population densities in 1000 aCin the north of’ Europe there are i’ast tracts of land that hare never been signi

ficantly populated. This ,,,akes det,sitv figures for Norway. Sweden. Finland andRussia-itt-Europe meaningless and thei are left out of thtc ‘;.ap and the other ,,iapslike it. Averages are fbr the area .chown. which amounts to 37m kit;2

20

crumbled away and in its place a new society began to form, the reudalsociety of the medieval period.

*

Europe began to find its new style and put on some demographic weightagain in the 8th century. From the Dark Age nadir of 26m the population rose to reach 30m by the opening years of the 9th century and 36mequal to the best level achieved in the classical period by the year 1000.From there it moved on up and as it did so its rate of increase accelerated.In the 11th century numbers increased by rather more than a fifth, in the12th by more than a quarter and in the 13th the peak century of the medieval cycle by more than a third. The total at the beginning of the 14thcentury was an unprecedented SOm.

This population was very differently distributed from the population ofclassical times. The axis of the classical world had been Mediterranean,

Fig. 1.5 Population of the Roman Empire and of the paris of Europe outside theEmpire in AD 200. Each symbol represents In, people

Fig. 1.6 Europe, population densities in AD 1300

Fig. 1.7 Europe. percentage changes in population AD 200—1300

22 23

lying along a line joining Greece and Italy. The axis of the new Europe wascontinental: the major powers were grouped either side of a line joiningItaly and Belgium (Fig. 1.6). The Balkans in general and Greece in particular were of little account.

It is clear that the peoples of North-West Europe had been multiplyingfaster than the peoples of the Mediterranean. So had the peoples of EastEurope, though because densities there remained very low this is not apparent on the density map. Fig. 1.7, which shows the percentage increasessince the classical period, makes it obvious. The average for theMediterranean region (see Fig. 1.10 for the definition) works out at only36°c. For the North-West the comparative figure is l85°~, for the East noless than 285°c. If these difterential rates of growth had been maintainedfor another century or two Mediterranean Europe would have paled intoinsignificance.

The growth rates were not maintained. A rural society can keep growingonly if it brings more land into use or works the land it has better. By 1300Europe was unable to do either. Its technology was improving too slowlyto be of any help in the short run: all the land had its quota of people andmore. The consequences became apparent early in the 14th century. Theprice of food rose, the nutritive state of the population deteriorated, mortality increased, the excess of births disappeared and the population graph,whose trend had been so strongly upward for the previous 500 years,suddenly levelled off. It was not a happy state of affairs the halt had beenimposed by sheer wretchedness but it was happier than the next act.

In 1347 bubonic plague (causative organism Pasteurella penis) broke outin the Crimea. It had been brought from Mongolia, where it was endemic,by one of the caravans that travelled the ancient silk route and it was nowto strike a European population that had little resistance to any diseaseand almost none at all to Pasteurella pestis. For if Europe had sufferedonslaughts of bubonic plague before, there had certainly been none for along time, and the lack of selective pressure over the intervening centurieshad left the population genetically defenceless. The result was the experience that the chroniclers of the time called ‘The Great Dying’ and whichhistorians today refer to as the Black Death.

Plague is a disease that affects rodents, fleas and men. The ships of theMiddle Ages which brimmed with all three were ideal agents for transmission, and the spread of plague from Kaffa, the European terminus of thesilk route, to the major ports of the Mediterranean was a matter of only afew months. Overland its progress was slower, but France, with one of theworst cases of rural overpopulation in Europe, provided a bridge betweenthe Mediterranean and the North Sea. By 1348 the disease was raging onboth sides of the English Channel. From there it spread through the BritishIsles and Scandinavia to the east coast of the Baltic. In the end it reached

into every corner of Europe, though its progress was slower and less murderous in the thinly populated lands in the east and south-east of thecontinent (Fig. 1.8).

Between a quarter and a third of the population of Europe died in theepidemic of 1347 53. This relieved the population pressure and released thesurvivors from the Malthusian factors that had been preventing growthduring the early 14th century. But though recovery was brisk, renewedepidemics probably of other diseases as often as plague kept scythingaway the increase. By 1400 the population of Europe was more than 25°,below its early medieval peak the total being nearer 60m than 80m andit was only at this point that the graph steadied again. In many countriesthe fall was even more catastrophic than these figures imply, for the moredensely populated areas, such as Italy, France, England and the LowCountries, had suffered a loss of nearer 33°c than 25°c. Correspondinglythe sparsely populated lands east of the Vistula suffered only minor losses,soon recouped.

Fig. 1.8 The spread of the Black Deal/i in Europe 1347 53. On land the plaguespread most readily in densely populated areas. Con verse4’, the low-density zone ofthe Balkans and southern Russia acted like afire-break, confining the disease to tileshores of the Black Sea and Aegean. Though the plague eventually got to Moscow itdid so via the Mediterranean. France, the North Sea and the Baltic, not by the directroute up the Volga

24 25

The 15th century saw recovery become general throughout Europe: byits end totals were back to the 1300 level in nearly every area. And from80m in 1500 there was sustained growth to around lOOm in 1600 andafter a hiccough in the years 1620—50, of which more later 120m in 1700.This rise was more firmly rounded than the medieval population boom.The economy, thanks to an improving technology and to the extra dimension added by the discovery of the sea routes to Asia and America, wasstronger, more productive and more resilient. Moreover, at least some ofthe hands that were surplus to the requirements or the countryside rounduseful employment in the rapidly growing towns. It was a period ofmetamorphosis: Europe was becoming capitalist and imperialist, increasingly intent on winning more wealth and ready to search the rest of theworld to find it.

In the medieval era there was a rough balance between theMediterranean trading community headed by Italy, and the Atlantic community headed by the Low Countries. This balance was destroyed duringthe crisis or the first half or the 17th century. The crisis was a general one: itincluded Europe’s worst war for centuries, the Thirty Years War of 161848, some very bad outbreaks of plague and a monetary upheaval that hadbeen working up since bullion imports from the New World reached significant levels in the I550s. Every country in Europe suffered both econ

omically and demographically. The result is the notch in the populationgraph at 1625 50 (Fig. 1.2). What sorted the winners rrom the losers wasthe recovery phase. In Italy this was so feeble that it can almost be said notto have happened at all: the country was permanently demoted rrom itsposition as a market leader. By contrast the Low Countries, the BritishIsles and France moved on to new levels of prosperity: their goods beganto dominate sales throughout Europe.

The subsequent population picture is interesting. At first sight there islittle difference between the early modern pattern (Fig. I.9a) and themedieval one (Fig. 1.6). Allowing for the increase in mean density from 20per km2 in 1300 to 30 per km2 in 1750 the grouping is almost identical.Holland moves up to the top rank, Ireland to the second and Scotland tothe third and that is all. However these changes do add up to a consistenttrend, a shirt northward along the Italy-to-Belgium axis. The point is wellmade in the map showing the percentage increases achieved by eachcountry between 1300 (the medieval peak) and 1750 (Fig. I.9b). This alsoshows the continuing high growth in the East, which finally enabled thisregion to overtake the relatively slow-growing Mediterranean community(Fig. 1.10). In fact the Russian Empire was now poised to push theKingdom of France from its traditional position as the most populousstate in Europe.

Fig I .9a Europe, population densities in 1750

26

Inhabilants per km’

46 or more

0 31to45-4------average 3016 to 30IS or less

Fig. I .9b Europe, percentage changes in population 1300—1750

27

—0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0~ ~ 00000 00 OtO

— — .— — ‘-I

l975—~

The next period is one of very high growth, far higher than any everexperienced before. In just under 100 years numbers went up by 80°,,from 140m in 1750 to 250m in 1845. This was more than twice theprevious record, the 36°, increase of the 12th century. Moreover by the endof the period it was clear that the rules of the game had changed: mortalityrates had dropped so far that unless and until there was a correspondingdrop in fertility the natural state would be one of continuing rapid growth.Man had got his old enemies, famine and plague, on the run. He was fairlylaunched into a new cycle, the modernization cycle, which was to bring notonly an unprecedented increase in numbers but an unprecedented improvement in the length and quality of life.

Can we sort out exactly what happened? At first sight it looks easyenough. Both the demographers’ and the economists’ graphs turn up at thesame time the second half of the 18th century and in the same placethe British Isles. Ergo, the demographic revolution and the industrialrevolution go hand in hand. But in that case how come that Ireland, withno industrial revolution, had the highest multiplication rate of all? Theanswer is that the boom started off as just a boom like any other: the thingsthat made it special the advances in health and wealth became important only after it was well established.

There could still be a link of sorts. Societies which have (1) a high densityof population for their time and (2) a high rate of increase seem to be better

Europe: subdivisioninto regions

East overtakes North-West /temporaiily 1914& 1939

Fig. 1.11 a Europe. populanon densities in 1845

Nbali-W~st bvehak~sHMediterranean in 800—

I I I I

c9

Inhabitants per km

76 or more51 to 754—average 5026 to 5025 or less

Fig. 1.10 29

at innovating than most. Fig. 1.12 makes the case: a succession of wavesmark the major surges of population in Europe and though there is nosuggestion that these represent anything but instabilities in the dynamics ofcolonization they correlate well with cultural achievement. So it is possiblethat the tendency to generate booms for the crest of each wave to rise toohigh has helped the advance of science and technology.

It certainly didn’t help the Irish. In 1845 as in 1750 they were still livingat subsistence level, the only difference being that in 1750 there had been3m of them while in 1845 there were 8-Sm. If allowance is made for the0-Sm who had moved to other parts of the United Kingdom and the I mwho had emigrated to the United States the Irish multiplication rate worksout at more than 200’~, comfortably greater than the l80°~ of the runners-up in the growth table, England and Wales. The potato blight that arrivedfrom America in 1845 put a terrible end to this runaway increase. For threesuccessive years it destroyed the crop on which the Irish peasantry hadbecome entirely dependent. A million died, a million more fled and theisland’s population began to drain away almost as fast as it had built up.

Ireland’s disaster had no effect on growth rates elsewhere in Europe. Thecontinent achieved, the same increase in the seventy years from 1845 to1914 as it had in the ninety-five years of the preceding period: 80°,,. Theactual increment was 200m, the final total 450m. And both figures wouldhave been SOm higher if emigration had not risen to quite unheard-of

Fig. 1.12 Europe. demographic development 1200 B C AD 1800. The na re-frontsrepresent rapid mulnftlicat ion to high lei’els ofdensity high for the date in question.that is. There is an obvious correlation between these demographic surges anti socialadvance. the first four haves mark the development of the classical culture ofGreeceand its spread through Italy: the next t,i’o the establishment ofthefrudal order inWestern Europe: the final pair the appearance of the early capitalist society of theNetherlands and the beginning of the industrial revolution in England

levels. Perhaps Sm people had left Europe between the voyages ofdiscovery and the year 1845: ten times that number left between then andthe outbreak of the First World War. The two biggest contingents, eachroughly lOm strong, came from the British Isles and Russia. Germany,Italy and Austro-Hungary added Sm each, and even Scandinavia, with itsrelatively small population, contributed 25m. The USA, which benefitedto the tune of 30m new citizens, was the main attraction, but Canada,Latin America, Australia and (in the Russian case) Siberia received a floodof new settlers too. The steamship and the railway made movement on thisscale possible: the promise of greater opportunity very largely genuinedid the rest.

S

I‘II

Fig. 1.11 b Europe, percentage changes in population 1750—1845

4

-~ -a

p

30 31

Within Europe the shifts were in favour of the Protestant north. Germany joined England and Wales and the Low Countries in the top rank ofthe density table; Italy dropped out (Fig. 1.1 3a). As for percentage increasemost countries managed a respectable rate all bar two are in the rank oneither side of the mean in Fig. 1.1 3b — and of the two exceptions, Irelandand France, the first was clearly a very special case. Ireland’s populationactually fell by 500, because emigration rates persistently outpaced naturalincrease. France managed a rise but such a feeble one a mere 17°, thatit slipped from second to fifth position among the powers of Europe (Figs.1.14, 1.15).

Another way of looking at these changes is in the manner of Fig. 1.12—picking out the country that is showing rapid growth to a high level ofdensity. This approach suggests that Germany was now going to take overfrom Britain as the most dynamic state in Europe. To a large extent thisexpectation was fulfilled: German scholars and scientists set new standardsfor the continent in the course of the later 19th century, while Germanindustry and technology outclassed the competition with increasing ease.However, in terms of the division into Mediterranean, North-West andEast, it was the East which was the winner. As Fig. 1.10 shows, the periodended with the East overtaking the North-West in absolute numbers andthreatening to leave it right behind in the course of the next few decades.

0

Inhabitants per km

129 or more

86 to 1284—average 8543 to 85

42 or less

Fig. I. 13a Europe. population densities in 1914 Fig. 1.14 Europe, political divisions in 1845

Fig. 1.1 3b Europe, percentage changes in population 1845 1914

32ii

This explains the paranoid element in contemporary German attitudes. Ifthe achievements of the Wilhelmine era were accompanied by an amountof drum-banging and trumpet-blowing that was excessive even by the jingoistic standards of the time, it was because of a lurking fear that the 20thcentury would turn out to be the century of the Slav not the German.

Germany’s attempts to prevent this happening provide our final period1914 to 1975 with its main theme. Scared by the statistics of Russianindustrial growth the Germans precipitated Europe into the First WorldWar in 1914. The four-year struggle cost the lives of 8m soldiers, with theNorth-West taking a slightly larger loss (Germany I7m, France l’3m,United Kingdom O’75m TOTAL 375m) than the East (Russia l’7m,Austro-Hungary l’25m, Romania O3m TOTAL 325m) and theMediterranean emerging relatively unscathed (Italy O65m TOTAL O’75m).But battle casualties are not the data of most significance to the demographer: much more important are rises in mortality due to malnutrition ordisease and birth deficits due to social and economic dislocation. Here theNorth-West got off relatively lightly. In Russia on the other hand theeconomy collapsed in 1917 and this collapse was followed by a revolutionary struggle in which famines and epidemics carried off literally millions ofpeople. What the exact mortality works out at is disputable: what is not isthat there was a drop of about lOm in the East as a whole and that this wassufficient to put the North-West region back in the lead.

The East made up the lost ground in the inter-war period and by theopening years of the Second World War was out in front again. This timeits loss was heavier than the other regions’ in every category. Of the l7msoldiers who died most came from the East (Russia lOm, Germany’seastern provinces and satellites l’Sm, Poland 0’Sm TOTAL 12m), relativelyfew from the North-West (Germany 3m, U K O’3m, France O’2m TOTAL

4m) and, once again, very few indeed from the Mediterranean (Italy 03m.Yugoslavia O’3m TOTAL 08m). The civilian deaths were in even greaterdisproportion, something like lOm for the East (including 45m of the SmJews murdered by the Nazis) as against Im in the North-West (including05m Germans and O’3m French) and l’Sm in the Mediterranean (l’2m ofthem Yugoslavs). The East also lost and the North-West gained the15m people who fled or were expelled from one to the other in the closingdays of the war and the immediate post-war period. Add in a birth deficitsufficient to cancel out the usual natural increases and we get a fall of 35min the East as against no change or a small increase in the other tworegions. This puts the North-West ahead of the East again in Fig. 1.10, aposition it has retained, though by a diminishing margin, up to now.

Politically of course the East has moved way out in front, with Russiadominating the European scene as never before. Whereas in 1845 Russiawas in population rather less than twice as big as the next biggest power(which was France see Fig. 1.14) and in 1914 was still something under

35

Fig. 1.15 Europe, political divisions in 1914 Fig. 1.16 Europe, political divisions in 1975

34

three times as big as the next (which was Germany see Fig. 1.15), now itis more than four times the number two (West Germany) and actuallybigger than numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 added together (see Fig. 1.16). There aretwo main reasons for the discrepancy between the regional and politicalpictures, one being that Russia is an Asian as well as a European state andits Asian population has grown very rapidly indeed, the other being thatthe second-ranking power, Germany, has been diminished in size anddivided in two.

This brings us to the last pair of maps in the density and percentage-increase series, Figs. ha and b. The density map is nice and simple: Italyhas rejoined the top rank, almost everyone else is in the third rank and onlypoor old Ireland is in the fourth. The result is a straightforward picture of ahigh-density strip running down the middle of a continent that is otherwisepopulated at a relatively moderate and surprisingly even density. The percentage-increase map is much more complicated. Of the three regions onlythe Mediterranean shows a consistent trend; the other two present a jumbleof high and low rates that appear to make no sense at all. The upheavalsinvolved in the two world wars are responsible for a lot of this patchiness:Czechoslovakia and Poland for example put themselves in the bottomrank by expelling their German minorities in 1945; conversely Switzerlandclimbed quietly up to the top because no one interrupted her peacefulprogress. If allowance is made for this sort of thing (and a blind eye isturned to the Netherlands) the map can be made to yield a believablepicture: low to moderate growth in the North-West, moderate growth inthe East and relatively strong growth in the Mediterranean. This is certainly the way the growth rates of the past decade are averaging out and itfits well with a theoretical expectation: the three regions are likely to slowdown in the same order they started up North-West first, Mediterraneanlast.

For of course the really important thing about Fig. l.17b is not itspatchwork look but the value for Europe as a whole, a mere 4O0~, just asthe really striking thing about European growth rates recently is not thedifferences among them but the fact that almost all have fallen rapidly.Compare the 1914—75 increase of 40°0 with the 8O0~ of 1845 1914 and it isclear that the steam has gone out of the boom: look at the growth rates forGermany, the United Kingdom and Belgium all now near zero — and it isclear that in some areas the modernization cycle is nearly over.

We should be thankful this is so and that it is happening so painlessly.Earlier booms were brought to an end by a fall in living standards and arise in mortality rates. Now the mechanism is gentler: it is reproductionrates that fall as children have to take their place in the hierarchy ofgratifications—cars, hi-fis, colour TV sets and holidays abroad availableto the consumer society. This isn’t what Malthus had in mind, but it’ll do.

37

Inhabitants per km’

186 or more124 to 1854—average 12362 to 123

61 or less

Fig. 1.1 7a Europe, population densities in 1975

Fig. 1.1 7b Europe) percentage changes in population 1914—75

36

Guest- Workers

One consequence of the difference in industrial maturity between North-West andMediterranean regions has been the build-up of a population of Mediterranean‘guest-workers’ in the North-West, particularly in West Germany (where there areI .4m, a third of them Yugoslavs, nearly a third Italians), France (I m, half of themPortuguese, a quarter Spaniards and a quarter Italians) and Switzerland (O4m, threequarters of them Italians). The idea is that all these people go home when theircontracts expire and at the moment most of them seem to. The prosperity of theNorth-West has also attracted people from further afield, notably Turkey (O6mguest-workers in West Germany), the Maghreb (O6m guest-workers in France, two-

38

thirds of them Algerians), the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent (communities in the United Kingdom numbering O75m and Im respectively). Britain’s immigrants differ from the rest in that they have full citizenship and are quite certainlypermanent.

The recent inflow from the West Indies, North Africa and Asia has attracted agreat deal of comment in Europe, which has traditionally been a continent thatpeople emigrate from, not immigrate into. For the post-1914 period as a whole theinput figures are in fact relatively puny, certainly no more than a fifth of the outputtotal of 25m.

Europe’s Frontier with Asia

The line dividing Europe from Asia has traditionally been taken to run along theUral mountains and Ural river to the Caspian Sea and then along the Caucasusmountains to the Black Sea. In 1958 the Russians officially adopted a new dividingline: this runs along the eastern foothills of the Urals, not the crest, and along theEmba river, not the Ural: from the Caspian Sea it follows the Kuma Manychdepression to the Sea of Azov. Whatever line you pick is going to be in Sovietterritory, so it seems reasonable to let Soviet geographers decide the issue: theirdefinition is the basis of the one used in this book. We have not followed the newline exactly because census data are published by administrative departments andmore often than not these lie partly in Europe and partly in Asia. Rather thanengage in dubious calculations as to how many people in a particular departmentlive on each side of the line, we have taken the inter-departmental boundaries thatcorrespond most nearly to the inter-continental division. The republics (SSR andASSR) and provinces (Krays and Oblasts) involved are shown on Fig. 1.18.

Fig. 1.18 Geography of the junction bet ,reen Europe and Asia

EUROPE AREA 1 The British Isles0-31m km2

la England and Wales 015m km’

Until the 6th millennium ac Englandwas joined to the Continent and postGlacial man was able to Come and goas he pleased. If, as seems likely, hepreferred to come in the summer andgo in the winter the population of thecountry will have been a seasonallyfluctuating one, with its upper and lowerlimits slowly rising from zero a fewhundred in the upper palaeolithic periodto a few hundred a few thousand in themesolithic. Around 5500 Bc the rise insea level caused by the melting of the icecaps created the English Channel andput a stop to these fluctuations. Thepopulation graph then steadied withinthe 2—3,000 band.

The arrival of the first farmers isdated to about 3500 BC. By the end ofthe neolithic (2000 ac) the populationhad grown to 50,000, by the LateBronze Age (1000 Bc) to 100,000, whilein the Iron Age, when several waves ofimmigrants from the continent broughtwith them a better system of agriculture,there was a relatively rapid increasefrom 0’2m (in 500 Bc) to 06m (in AD I).Previously, farming had been more amatter of stock-raising than ploughing:now the plough became the farmer’smost important tool and, in the south ofthe country at least, permanent villagesbecame the normal pattern of occupation.

The Roman conquest brought lawand order: the population increased,finally reaching a peak of 08m in the4th century AD. Unfortunately, when

the Romans left at the beginning of the5th century they took their law andorder with them and left behind a community that was no longer capable oforganizing its own: Anglo-Saxoninvaders poured in from Germany andthe British were hustled westward.Between the area of immediate Germansuccess along the east and south coastsand the area that remained under therule of the natives now known asWelsh lay a no-man’s land that mayhave amounted to a quarter of the total.The population will have fallen by anequivalent amount and at its Dark Agenadir around AD 700 can hardly haveexceeded 0óm: more than half will havebeen descendants of the 0tm AngloSaxons who had landed during the period AD 450—550.

Demographic recovery came as theAnglo-Saxons pushed the conquest tonear completion, driving the Welsh intoWales. By 800 the population waspassing the Roman peak, by 1000 itwas around t5m and by the time of theNorman conquest, l75m, of which theWelsh accounted for rather less thanI0°~.

Population growth over the next sixcenturies went in fits and starts. The period 1100—1300 saw a big rise. This is theera of medieval expansion, with bothacreage under the plough and totalpopulation reaching record levels.Indeed, the final figure of around 375mseems to have been well over theoptimum for the agricultural technology

41

70of the time, for, as more and more marginal land was brought into use, bothproductivity and standards of living fell.Since the norm was little better thansubsistence, the nutritional state of thepopulation declined dangerously. By1300 the population was having difficulty maintaining itself and before thebubonic plague had ever been seen inEngland the stage was set for disaster.

As in Europe generally, the initial attack of the plague, the 1348 9 epidemicwhich is known (retrospectively) as theBlack Death, killed something like athird of the population. Further outbreaks through the remainder of thecentury thwarted any recovery and by1400 the population of England and

— Wales was down to 2’Sm. It took thewhole of the 15th century and perhapssome of the 16th for the population toregain its pre-Black Death level and,though figures then broke new ground,epidemics of one sort or anotherfrequently placed the increase In

jeopardy. The final outbreak of bubonicplague in England the ‘Great Plague’of 1665 was, in fact, less severe thanthe plagues of 1603 and 1625 but wasremembered as the Great Plaguebecause it was the last in the series.

Curiously, the absence of plaguebrought little immediate change in thedemographic situation, long-term population growth in the late 17th and early18th centuries being almost impercept

— ible. Then, in the late 18th century, camethe demographic revolution: the population curve turned sharply upwards asthe processes of industrialization andurbanization became explosive. From6lm in 1750 the population grew to92m in 1800 (a 50”,, gain) and to l8m in1850 (a 100”,, gain). There was only aslight slackening in the second half ofthe 19th century (when the growth ratewas still over 75°,, yielding a 1900population figure of 33m), but in the

20th century the fall-off in the rate ofincrease became more noticeable, thepopulation rise being of the order of onethird in the first half of the century; itwill probably be only a quarter or lessin the second half. That will still giveEngland and Wales a density of nearly370 per km2.

Since the early 19th century there hasbeen considerable migration into andout of England and Wales. Prior to 1950the input was very largely Irish andCatholic. The native Catholic population had gradually dwindled under therepressive legislation that followed theProtestant Reformation, falling fromabout 20°, of the total in 1600 to littlemore than 5°, in 1700 and a bare I’, inthe t780s. The beginning of significantIrish immigration dates to this period ofnear zero native Catholic population, sothe figures for Catholics after this datecan be taken as a measure of Irish immigration plus, as time passed, the naturalmultiplication of the immigrants. By1850 the Catholic percentage was backto 5°,, (09m). by 1900 to 6~”, (2’35m).and it is currently around 10”, (Sm).

The Jewish community has a morerecent history. Following the pogromsin Russia during the 1880s there was alarge influx of East European Jews intoLondon and, though most of themmerely used the city as a port of call ontheir way to the New World! somethinglike 03m had settled in England permanently by 1914. The present-daycommunity numbers about 0’4m.

While the Catholic and Jewish communities grew, the Welsh were (in a linguistic sense) absorbed. At the begin’ning of the 18th century Wales had stillbeen predominantly Welsh-speaking: bythe early 20th century the percentageof natives who only spoke Welsh hadfallen below 10”,.

Up to the period immediately afterthe First World War, the various input

England andWales

60

50

‘I

10

8

6

4

2

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ‘it 0~ CO 0’ CO C, 00 0 — — — — •o1

1975—~

Europe Area Ia42

figures for England and Wales were offset by a far larger output. The actualnumbers are somewhat speculative, butfor the period 1850—1950 a total immigration of about Sm was outweighed bythe emigration of some 8m, nearly allof whom went to North America or

— Australia. In the period from 1950 to1962 (when stringent immigration controls were introduced) the situation wasreversed: immigration from the ‘neWcommonwealth countries’ (theCaribbean and the Indian sub-

continent) created a positive balance ofabout 0’Sm and a present-day colouredcommunity of approximately l’75m40°c Caribbean, 6000 Indian.

The native English birth rate has beenfalling fairly steadily in recent years andprojections for the year 2000 have beenprogressively lowered. The currentestimate is around 53m: the age structure of the ‘new commonwealth’population suggests that their proportion of the whole will have risen to atleast 5°~ by then.

Educated guesses for the earliest periods up to Roman times are given in Chapter 6 ofGrahame Clark, Archaeology and Society (1947). For the medieval period the standard work is J. C. Russell, British Medieval Population (1948), though his Domesdayfigures are now thought to be a bit low. For a discussion of she margin of error incalculations derived from the Domesday Book and the 1377 poll tax records seeM. 1.1. Posian, The Medieval Economy and Society (1972). For the 16th century see J.Cornwall. Economic History Review 23(1) 1970. Gregory King’s estimate is discussedand revised by Gloss in and Eversley. For the 18th century see Phyllis Deaneand W. A. Cole. British Economic Growth 1688—1959(1967). pp. 5,6. For the RomanCatholic and Jewish communities in England see John D. Gay. The Geography ofReligion in England (1971).

lb ScotlandIt was not until the 9th millennium BC

that the Scottish ice cap shrank enoughfor mesolithic man to move in, and evenwhen he did his numbers were trivialno more than a few dozen. The population rose to a few hundred in theneolithic (3rd millennium BC) and perhaps to 2,500 in the Bronze Age (2ndmillennium aC), but it was only in theIron Age that the figure finally reachedthe 100,000 mark. This population wasalmost entirely confined to the lowlands:the reason the Romans never made anyattempts to occupy the Highlands wasthat there were not enough peoplethere no matter how hard they wereflogged to support a garrison.

In the medieval period the Scotsbecame a nation. For the first time thepopulation figures became considerable,the half million mark being reached justbefore the advent of the Black Deathand regained by 1500. By the 17th century the country was even beginning toget overpopulated, a trend to which thenewly introduced potato contributed,particularly in the Highlands. Between1600 and 1700 numbers increased fromtwo thirds of a million to a million, or

Primary Sources and Bibliography

O’08m km2

by 5000, and this despite the fact that,during the same period, 75,000 Scots hadleft their homes and settled in Ulster.

The industrial revolution came to therescue. In step with the English. theScots industrialized and urbanized, andthe country’s expanding economy wasable to sop up the increase in a usefulway. The migration balance becamepositive, with 0’2m net arrivals fromIreland during the period 1800—50:agriculture became relatively so unimportant that when the potato blight arrived it caused only a local demographiccollapse in the Highlands, not an overalldisaster as in Ireland. Nevertheless thischeck did mark the end of the real boomtimes and after 1850 Scotland became anet exporter of people again. Thepopulation grew from just under 3m in1850 to 4’Sm in 1900, but the Sm markwas reached only in 1950, and since—1960 there has been almost no growth atall. The net outflow during this time hasbeen of the order of 2m, representing avery high rate of emigration. Scotland’spopulation, which was a fifth ofEngland’s in 1700, is now only a tenthits size.

As in England the decennial census was introduced in 1801 and apart from the war year1941 has been taken regularly ever since. The pre-census material is sparse. there areno useful tax returns and even the parish registers, being voluntary, are not reallyreliable. Alexander Webster:, pioneer estimate of 1755 (for which see A. Youngson,Population Studies 15 (2) 1961) was based on parochial returns: the figure he cameup with was 1’265m.

For the medieval period see J. C. Russell’s British Medieval Population (1948). Forguesses at the prehistoric population levels see V. G. Childe, The Pre-history ofScotland (1935).

Primary Sources

British detnographers are lucky in possessing two exceptionally early surveys.’ theDomesday Book, compiled in the 1080s, and the record of the poll tax of 1377.Continuous statistics get off to a much later and shakier start in the 16th century.which produced muster rolls.fiscal assessments and Thomas Cromwell’s instruction toparish priests to register baptisms, marriages and burials (1538). The first attempt tocalculate the country’s population dates from the end of the next century, whenGregory King came up with afigure of 5’S,,i: lie based his calculations on the hearth-tax returns for 1662—82.

The first official census was held in 1801. This and the next four in the decennialseries were supervised by John Rickman. During his period in office he also called inand analysed a sample of the material obtainable in the parish registers for the 18thcentury and produced retrospective figures back to 1700.

The decennial census has been held on schedule since 1801 with a single exception,the wartime year of 1941.

Bibliography

ic IrelandIreland’s prehistoric population buildup was proportionately slower thanEngland’s. Starting from a few hundredin the mesolithic, the number is unlikelyto have risen to more than a few thousand in the neolithic and 100,000 in theIron Age. Medieval growth was moreimpressive from 03m at the beginningof the 11th century to 08m by the endof the 13th century and in the earlymodern period the total finally reachedthe million.

At this point the English control overthe island, hitherto nominal, becameboth actual and bloody. Ireland’srefusal to follow England along the pathof religious reform led to a series offerocious wars in the course of whichthe north-east province of Ulster wascleared of natives and ‘planted’ with100,000 Protestant settlers, mostly lowland Scots.

—‘ Despite these upheavals, the Irish rateof multiplication was now sufficientlyfast to produce a doubling of thepopulation within the 17th century. Andthe rate itself was rising: during the 18thcentury it more than doubled (to 525m)and at the growth rate then existing thelOm mark would have been reached by1850. This was alarming. England, withits industrializing economy and itsrapidly growing cities, might be able toabsorb a comparable increase, but inIreland neither industrialization norurbanization had even begun: the extrapopulation would have to find its living

— on the land. The potato, introduced inthe late 16th century. went some waytowards making it possible to sustainthe increase, for a field of potatoes canfeed four times as many people as thesame area under wheat. Nevertheless,the history of early 19th-century Irelandwas one of increasing impoverishment.

0-OSm km’

By 1845 up to a quarter of the population was without work and, during thewinter months, almost without food.Since 1800, ISm people had emigrated:—’roughly Im to settle in the New Worldand 0’Sm to work in the new factories inEngland and Scotland.

The emigration from Ireland in theearly 19th century was a movementwithout precedent, but it was notenough to avert catastrophe. In 1846and 1847 the failure of the potato crop(due to blighting by fungus) turnedIreland into a disaster area. By 1851 thesequence of famine years had caused atleast 0’75m excess deaths. For millionsthere was but one hope escape to happier lands and the only positive featurein the situation was that the emigrationof preceding decades had establishedoutlets across the Irish Sea and AtlanticOcean. What had been a stream nowbecame a flood: during the years 1846—SI a million people left the strickenisland and, although the threat offamine then receded, lack of work keptemigration figures at a level that wouldhave been considered incredibly high byall standards except those of the immediate post-famine years- From 1851to 1900 another 3m people left (makinga total of Sm for the 19th century): theisland’s population fell from the 1845peak of 85m to 4’Sm in 1900.

In the early 20th century the fall innumbers continued, a low of 4’25mbeing reached in 1930. Since then therehas been a slight recovery to 45m. Emigration, which in this century hasamounted to about ISm, has not beenthe only factor in this restabilization ofthe population: there has also been a fallin fertility of a peculiarly Irish type,brought about by less and later marriage.

Scotland

5.25?

5?

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 g~ 0 ~ 0 U~ 0 b~ 0 to 0CD t ~ 0) 0o o — — — —I I 1975—i

46 Europe Areas lb and J~

Since 1921 Ireland has been divided Protestant-dominated (but one thirdbetween the almost entirely Catholic Catholic) U K province of Ulster in theFree State in the south (population in north (population increasing from1921 75 stable at 3m) and the l’25m in 1921 to Sm in 1975).

Primary Sources

Data adequate for a calculation of Ireland’s population begin only with the introductionofa hearth tax in 1662. they were first so used by Sir William Petty in 1672. The firstproper census was carried out in 1821 and censuses hare been held decennially sincethen with the exception of the years 1931. 1941 and 1951. During this period north andsouth took their censuses separately, the north in 1937 and 1951 and the south in 1926,1936, 1946 and 1956.

Bibliography

Pointers useful in estimating the medieval population of Ireland are summarized inJ. C. Russell’s British Medieval Population (1948). The period from the late 17thcentury to the pre-famine peak is fully covered in K. H. Connell’s The Population ofIreland 1750—1845 (1950): the table on p. 25 gives his final estimate for the period1687 1841. For the mortality during the famine years see S. H. Cousens, PopulationStudies 14(1) 1960.

The British Isles

00 0000 S 0000 5~ 000000~ 0000 0000 0~)0b~0~~ iflo~ 0

— — _jc~

1975

Europe Area I

The Ice Age lasted longer inScandinavia than in any other part ofEurope, the peninsula emerging fromthe ice only in the course of the 9th millennium ac. A few thousand reindeerhunters moved in then. Behind them, inthe next millennium, came a rather morenumerous population of mesolithicfood-gatherers, and finally, around 5000ac, the first farmers. Denmark, the onlysizable area immediately suitable foragriculture, straight away became thedemographic heavyweight among theScandinavian countries. If there were150,000 people in the area by the timethe local Iron Age began in 500 Bc, twothirds of them will have lived inDenmark: comparable figures for 200ac would be 400,000 and 5000.

Since then two themes have characterized Scandinavian population history, the colonization of the north and atendency to overspill. The two arepresumably related: in fair weather theland-hungry will have looked north, infoul overseas. Whether or not therelationship is as simple as this orindeed whether it exists at all shouldbecome clear as more is learnt aboutEurope’s climate in the last 3,000 years.One bit of evidence that is to hand isthat most of the emigration movementsseem to have started from the northern,more temperature-sensitive half of thepopulation zone.

50

l-l5m km’

2a Denmark O-04m km22b Sweden O-45m km’

(O-03m km’arablc)2c Norway O-32m km2

(O-OIm km2 arabIc)2d Finland O-34m km2

(O-03m km2 arabic)

The first clear case of overspill is themigration by some of the Goths ofSweden to Germany in the last centurync. Other Scandinavian clans followedduring the next 200 years and themovement probably came to an endonly when the fall of Rome an event inwhich the continental Goths played aprominent part relieved populationpressure throughout the Teutonicworld.

The next time the lid blew off in amuch more spectacular way. By the endof the 8th century AD the Scandinavianshad developed Europe’s first really efficient sailing ship, the square-sailed Vikinglongship. This enabled them to exporttheir surplus population over an amazingly wide area. The movement beganwith the Norse (Norwegians), whoestablished colonies in Scotland, northern England, and the empty islands ofthe north Atlantic (the Faroes, Icelandand Greenland: see Area 15). TheSwedish adventurers, the Varangians,travelled east; they sailed along the greatrivers of Russia to set up the principalities of Novgorod and Kiev, andtraded and raided as far as the Caspianand Black Seas. The Danes concentrated on the shores of the EnglishChannel. There they founded the Duchyof Normandy (in the early 10th century)and, after many attempts, finallysucceeded in conquering England

EUROPE AREA 2 Scandinavia Scandinavia

C,

-t°OsloStockholm

DENMARK‘.4 Copenhagen

24?

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 0 0 0ii’ 0 10 0 tO 0

—o2o~’~’l0 ‘0 0- ~ ~ 000

— — — — to2

F4 P1 1975~1

Europe Area 2

(1016). Altogether, we can reckon thatsome 200,000 people left Scandinaviafor good between the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 11th, ofwhom perhaps half lived long enough totell their children how they sailed withRagnar Lothbrok, Rollo or SveynForkbeard.

The reflux clTects of the Vikingmovement brought Christianity andbetter manners to Scandinavia which, inthe years immediately before and afterAD 1000, settled down into the threekingdoms of Denmark. Norway andSweden. For a long time the Danishkingdom was the most important of thethree: it was the most densely populated(it still is), so it was relatively easy toadminister; it was also the biggest inabsolute numbers because its traditionalboundaries included the southern partof Sweden and a fifth of its inhabitants.The gradual development of the northchanged this picture. By the middle ofthe 17th century the Swedes were strongenough to force the King of Denmark togive up his hold on the south of theircountry: by its end they outnumberedthe Danes 2 to I. In fact Swedes thenconstituted half the population of thearea, more than ever before or since.

Sweden’s relative decline in recenttimes is a consequence of Finland’s rise.Nowhere has the frontier of cultivationbeen pushed northward so dramaticallyas in Finland. The result of this is thatthe 100,000 Finns of late medieval timeshave been able to multiply up to a

Primary Sources

present total of nearly Sm. There havebeen dreadful setbacks within the overall success, most notably in 1697 when acrop failure was followed by a famine inwhich 100,000 people, a third of thecountry’s population, died. Recoverytook a generation. And though this wasthe worst ever loss it was far from thelast one: as late as 1867 8°, of thepopulation died following an exactlysimilar crop failure.

In modern times Scandinavia’s overpopulation problems have found apeaceable solution in emigration to theNew World. Between 1815 and 1939there was a net outflow of 275m people,of whom l25m were Swedes, 085mNorwegians, 035m Danes and 025mFinns. Relative to size, Norway’s contribution is much the largest, which isunderstandable given its traditionallymaritime outlook.

The populations of the Scandinavianstates are homogeneous. In the far northsome 20,000 Lapps. descendants of thereindeer hunters of palaeolithic times,still cling to the old ways. There areabout a third of a million Swedishspeakers in Finland: they represent thedescendants of a colonizing wave thatcrossed the Baltic during the periodwhen Finland was under Swedishdomination. There are a similar numberof Finns in Sweden but they are veryrecent immigrants attracted by thegreater economic opportunities of theSwedish labour market. All these minorities are tending to decline.

5.5?

9?

4.5?

5?

These are almost non-existent until the 17th century, when a start was made withparish registration throughout the area. Denniark levied a poll tax (1660) and theNorwegians compiled a muster roll (1664—6). In the 18th century all is light. Nationalcollections ofparish registers are available from 1730 on. A proper census was taken inSweden and its dependency Finland in 1749 (the first ever held in continental Europe):Denmark and its dependency Norway followed suit in 1769.

52Europe Areas 2a-d

The Swedish and Finnish censuses were repeated in 1760 and hare been takenregularly, usually quinquenniall.v’. ever since. The Danish census was repeated in 1787,1801 and 1834. and either quinquennially or decennially from 1840 on. The Norwegiancensus n’as repeated in 1801 and. with afrw irregularities, decennially from 1850 on.

Bibliography

EUROPE AREA 3 FranceO-ZSm km2

For acceptable guesses as to the population of the Scandinavian countries in the 11thcentury AD see the Cambridge Medieval History (Vol. 6 (1929). p. 367), and forNorway in the 14th century the * Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Vol. 4.

p. 38). * Rus.celPs medieval figures seem too Ion’ to us.For the Danish poll tax of 1660 see .4. Lassen, Sc. Econ. HR. 14 (1966), for the

Norwegian muster rolls S. Dyrvik. Sc. Econ. HR. 20(1972), andfor the n’hole area inthis period H. Gille, in Population Studies 3(1)1949.

France, with some 10,000 inhabitants inthe upper palaeolithic (c.15.000 BC), canfairly be called the heartland of earlyprehistoric Europe. This position it lostwhen the climate improved: the population in thc mcsolithic cra (c.7500 BC)

never grew beyond 50,000 and thecountry entered the neolithic, food-producing stage considerably later thanmost of its neighbours. By the end of thefirst full millennium of the neolithic, in3000 ac, numbers were up to 0’Sm, by2000 Bc the total was Im, by 1000 BC

2m and by 400 BC 3m. But there wereless people in France than in Italy, andthey were less sophisticated too. Theresult was the Roman conquest of Gaul.dramatically completed by Julius Caesarin the middle years of the last centuryBC.

Once accepted, Roman rule usheredin a prosperous phase during whichnumbers increased to a peak figure of6’Sm in AD 200. The turning point camefifty years later when the Germansbroke through the Rhine frontier androughed up the Gauls in a way theynever really recovered from. This disaster, plus the measures the authoritiestook to repair it, triggered off a reversalof the previous trend with a fall in numbers to Sm by AD 400.

At this point the western half of theRoman Empire disintegrated and theFranks, a German people from thelower Rhine, moved in to become thearea’s new rulers. The Franks hadneither the wish nor the capacity to

revive the old Gallo-Roman economyand while they were evolving their ownfeudal system of government the fall inpopulation continued, It eventually bottomed out at about 4’5m in AD 600.

What was gradually lost over the fourcenturies up to AD 600 was graduallyrecovered in the four centuries following: by AD 1000 France once again hada population of 6Sm. This time it was atthe beginning, not the end, of a phase ofrapid growth. Despite an outflow ofadventurous sons to England. Italy andthe Holy Land the second half of the11th century produced a rise of a million. In the 12th century the gain wasmore than 2’Sm (for a total of l0’Sm)and in the 13th century more than Sm.The great cathedrals built in these yearsare memorials to this upsurge, whichcarried the country’s population to 16mby the beginning of the 14th century,and perhaps a million more thoughafter 1300 the rate of increase certainlyfell off very sharply by the time theBlack Death struck in 1348.

Whatever the exact number it was toohigh. The medieval cycle had reached its —

Malthusian limit, with the mass of thepeasantry in poorer health than it hadbeen a hundred years earlier. This explains why the toll exacted by disease inthe period 1348 1400 was so terrible.And terrible it was. Not only did a thirdof the population die in the initial pandemic of bubonic plague but repeatedattacks of this and other diseases in thesecond half of the century turned this

55

temporary reduction into a new equilibrium point. Not till the opening yearsof the 15th century was there any sign ofsustained recovery, not till well into the16th century did the French populationreach its 1348 level again.

Surpassing the previous best was onlypart of the demographic achievement ofthe early modern era: during the period1550-1650 there was an additional gainof 30°,, which took the population overthe 20m mark. Then there was a pausedue partly to bad luck, partly to badmanagement. The bad luck came in theform of epidemics and famines, the badmanagement was supplied by LouisXIV. Out of sheer bigotry Louis expelled 02m of his hardest-working subjects, the Huguenots, while by his incessant and ultimately unsuccessful wars hesucceeded in temporarily ruining thecountry’s economy. The reign that hadbegun in confidence and glory ended inbitterness and poverty.

After Louis’ death things soon pickedup again, though the first sign that theywere beginning to do so was a peculiarlyalarming one, an outbreak of plague atMarseilles in 1720. This was locallydevastating it killed half the 80,000people in the city but it didn’t spreadbeyond Provence, showing that thedisease had lost some of its penetratingpower. In fact it turned out that as faras Western Europe was concerned thiswas the plague bacillus’s last throw:there were no more epidemics after thisone. Right across the continent population figures began to rise, at first moderately then with unprecedented speed.

France’s population rose along withthe rest, though less rapidly. Indeedand in this France is unique the newcycle boosted numbers by a smaller percentage than had the medieval cycle. Inisolation the figures are fairly impressive 29m in 1800, 36m in 1850. Compared to the rest of Europe they are

feeble. Moreover, in the second half ofthe 19th century, though the populationmanaged to rise to 41m, this increasewas entirely due to the greaterindividual longevity that resulted fromthe improvement in health and generalliving standards.

Emigration has never played a signifi- —

cant part in French population history.The reason why numbers grew so slowlywas that the birth rate fell. Frenchmenwere, it goes without saying, approaching their traditional business withtraditional vigour, but to their customary skills they now added a finalflourish. Coitus inlerrupsus, it seems,became a national habit: fleeting pleasures were not allowed to undermine thegood life.

One of the results of this self-controlwas that by 1870 there were moreGermans than Frenchmen. That sameyear Bismarck wrested France’straditional primacy from her. In theFirst World War France showed thatshe had enough guts and enoughallies to get it back, but the cost wasso high (l3m war dead and an equallylarge birth deficit) that the country wasactually weakened by its victory. Therewas a widespread feeling, abroad as wellas at home, that France could not afford to sustain another such struggle.And in the event her speedy defeat inthe Second World War showed that shecouldn’t, or wouldn’t. Defeat had itsprice too 05m dead, a 025m birthdeficit but it was within the nation’smeans.

After the war there was a remarkable —

and quite unexpected upswing in theFrench birth rate. This, together withthe arrival of 08m refugees fromAlgeria in 1962/3, pushed the population totals towards today’s figure of53m. Some 375m of these are foreignworkers, specifically Italians, Spaniards,Portuguese and native Algerians, but as

France62?

looti,I ~ 8 8 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 00o~.fl co 1. ~ 0C) 0 — — — —

1975

56 Europe Area 3

Population of Gaul, the Kingdom of France, the French Empire and theFrench Republic

Roman Gaul was about 15°. larger than modern France. the Kingdom of France atits inception in the 10th century about 20°,, smaller. Population figures need adjusting accordingly. By 1700 the gap between France then and now had narrowed tol0°~; in the 1760s it was near enough closed by the annexation of Lorraine andCorsica.

The French Revolution was followed by the incorporation of Belgium intoFrance. Then followed the dizzying series of Napoleonic annexations which broughtthe population of the Empire (not including satellites) to near 50m by 1812. All thesegains were soon lost again and in 1870 Alsace and Lorraine went too. The recoveryof these two provinces in 1918— by which time their population had doubled to 2mbrings the French frontiers to their present position.

Primary Sources

Though Caesar gives some indications of the size oft/ic Celtic tribes in his Gallic Warthe first overall data are fbund it, the hearth lax returns of 1328. Exactly iii at they addup to is debatable for they only cover about half the pre.cent area and sonic of theindividual figures are demonstrably wrong (e.g. tile figure for Paris). The first reasonably reliable esth,,ate was tnade by Vauban in 1697 1700 on the basis of dataspecially provided by the provincial administrators: the ,naterial has been reworked andextrapolated recently to produce figures for the contemporan’ Kingdom (20;,i) and thepresent area (22m). The first in the present series of censuses has held in 1801.

Civil registration “as established in France only in /792, so for the interval bet ‘teenVauban ‘s estitnate and the 1801 census demographers have to rely on parish registers.These are reasonably reliable from 1667 on and a lot of work has been done on them inrecent years. Some registers also contain earlier ,naterial hut here it is difficult to knowhow far it is reasonable to tnake the,,, the basis/br generalizations.

Bibliography

The classic work oti the demographic history of France is E. Levasseur. La PopulationFrançaise (1889): it is still the best introduction to the subject, though it needs to he readin conjunction with the relevant sections of * Beloch and • Russell. There is nothing,nuch to add to these at the prehistoric end — the site-count method used by L.-R.Nougier in Population 9. 2 (1954) is highly suspect and the figures it produces tnuchtoo large. For the 1328 hearth tax see the article by F. Lot in Bibliothéque de l’Ecole

France has had a substantial foreigncommunity for a long time it was Imin 1900 and 3m in the 1930s too muchcan be made of this element. Of thenative minorities and most importantare the 2m Alsatian speakers, the 2m

Bretons and 03m Corsicans (of whomonly half live on Corsica): the mostinteresting is the French share of theBasque population in the Pyreneeswhich amounts to 0lm o of 08Sm(the rest being Spanish).

70

50

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Populations of(1)Roman Gaul - - -

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58

4a BelgiumThe population of Belgium in upperpalaeolithic times (c.15,000 BC) can beestimated at a few hundred at most:even in the mesolithic, around 8000 ac,the number was still only a few thousand. Settled farming, which first appeared about 4000 uc, caused a jumpto ten thousand and then continuinggrowth to 30,000 (by the end of theneolithic), 100,000 (by the end of theBronze Age), and 03m (at the time ofthe Roman conquest). At its most prosperous, the Roman province (GalliaBelgica) may have held as many as 04mpeople.

In the 3rd century came the first waveof the Germanic tide that was soon tosubmerge Western Europe. The effecton Belgium was immediate and disastrous. Many provincials fled to saferlands and as the province emptied theGermans moved in. Half a centurybefore Rome fell the Germans werealready masters of the northern half ofthe country and the division betweenGerman-speakers (the present-dayFlemings) and Romance-speakers (thepresent-day Walloons) was firmly established.

Recovery from the post-classicalpopulation nadir which in Belgium’scase was around 0’25m began in the9th century. By the year 1000 thepopulation was back to the best Romanlevel and during the next three centuriesthe country notched up a rate ofincrease that kept it at the top of theEuropean growth league. Geography

O-07m km’

0-03m km’ (including Luxembourg;area 2,600 km 2, 1975 population O’35m)

helped: situated at the centre of theemerging north European trade networkBelgium was the chief beneficiary of themedieval economic boom. Belgianweavers set the pace in the most important of contemporary industries, theclothing trade; Belgian entrepreneursmade the name of Fleming synonymouswith mercantile success. By 1300 thepopulation was l’25m and the countrythe most prosperous and denselypopulated in Europe.

The Black Death put a stop to all this.Under the recurrent attacks of plaguethat characterized the second half of the14th century the population sagged,reaching a low of about 0’8m in 1400.There was, it is true, an almost completerecovery in the course of the 15th century. But the country never regained itsold trading position. It was a falteringeconomy that the Spanish took over during the reign of the Emperor Charles.

Spanish rule was not a success. Apolicy of religious persecution drove theProtestants to the Netherlands and taxation killed trade and initiative; theresult was that between 1550 and 1650there was no growth in numbers at all.Towards the end of the 17th century thepopulation total seemed to have stuck atnot much more than l’Sm.

From these doldrums the country wasrescued by the industrial revolution.Coal, iron and proximity to England allconspired to make Belgium the first continental country to undergo the industrial transformation and the first to feel

des Chartes 90 (1929): the figure for Paris 60,000 liearths at a time when the citycannot hare contained many ‘nope than 60,000 people is demolished (to most people ~csatisfaction) by P. Bollinger in Revue Historique 216 (1956).

The best introduction in English to the population history of France since 1500 is thegroup of articles by Henry, Goubert, Bourgeois-Pichat and Meuvret in * Glass andEversley. A good recent summary of the massive work being done on parish registers ofthe 18th century is contained in a Special Number of Population 30 (November 1975).There is a discussion of the Huguenat outflow in W. C. Scot Wile, The Persecution ofthe Huguenots and French Economic Development (1970). The plague of 1720—22 isthe subject of an article by J.-N. Biraben in • Glass and Revelle. The basic textbook onthe period since 1800 is lid. Hither, H. Bunle and F. Boverat. La Population de IaFrance (4th edn 1965).

EUROPE AREA 4 The LowCountries

61

the demographic effects of this change.Between 1700 and 1800 the populationof the area nearly doubled and by 1900it was close on 7m. Since then growthhas been steady, except in war years.The 1975 population isjust over lOm.

The diversity of the Belgian population already divided (almost equally)

between Flemings and Walloons hasbeen intensified in recent years by aninflux of foreign workers. There are currently about 025m of these, a third ofthem Italians. The growth rate is no longer high: it is unlikely that the population will significantly exceed I Im in theyear 2000.

4b The Netherlands O-03m km2

The population of the Netherlands afew hundred in the palaeolithic erarose to pçrhaps 2,000 in the mesolithic(7000 sc), 10,000 by the late neolithic(3000 Bc) and 50,000 by the end of theBronze Age (1000 BC). By the earlyyears of the Christian era the total was0-2m, a figure that is unlikely to havealtered significantly during the next halfdozen centuries. The Frisians theGerman people who occupied the areaof the modern Netherlands at this timeestablished an amicable relationshipwith the Romans, whose direct controlwas limited to the southern quarter ofthe country: they played no part in theviolent movements that led to the downfall of the Roman Empire and remainedoutside the various kingdoms that thebarbarians erected in its place. In fact,these political events were of less significance to the Netherlanders than thebehaviour of the sea. Massive floodingappears to have taken place during the5th century and the consequent loss ofland will have offset any gains madeover the previous centuries.

The next period of growth occurred inthe 10th century as part of the generalupsurge that carried Europe out of theDark Ages: the population of theNetherlands passed the quarter of a million mark in AD 1000 and it continued

to increase at a steady rate throughoutthe early medieval centuries. By A D 1300the Netherlands contained more than08m people, a respectable total if somewhat overshadowed by the l25m inBelgium. But then the Netherlandsnever held the same commanding position in the medieval European economyas did its neighbour to the south.

The inferiority of north to south wasto some extent changed by the 14th-century plague, from which theNetherlands made a quicker recoverythan Belgium. It was completelyreversed in the 16th century, when therevolt against Spanish rule severed thetwo halves of the Low Countries forgood much to the advantage of thenorth. The new-born Dutch republicbecame the economic wonder of theworld: its flotillas grew into armadaswhich monopolized the carrying tradeof Europe and gathered intoAmsterdam the wealth of the Indies andAmericas. The Dutch standard of livingbecame the world’s highest: this and apolicy of toleration far in advance of thetimes attracted considerable immigration from the southern Netherlands andnorthern Germany. The result was apopulation leap from l2m in 1550 tol9m in 1650.

The Dutch economic miracle was

Belgium andLuxembourg.

ii?

—a.o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 ~ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 b~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ifl 0~ ~ t- ~ 0 0CC.) — ‘ — — oa

197562 Europe Area 4a

theBet~of tit ‘4

hasThe

T(ion

41Thefewros~(701(30<Broyea02,altedozGeioftcstawitlwastheviolfalloutbarthe:canbehapf5thIan,ove

‘ItheLips

DaNeho,

62

matched by increasing political commitments which eventually put a stop tofurther expansion. Something under 2mwas a tiny population base from whichto wage war against the great powers ofEurope. By the late 17th century Dutchprosperity was declining under a load oftaxation such as was inflicted on noother people, and population growthhad ceased. The figure of l’9mDutchmen remained unaltered until1750 and was only marginally exceededin 1800.

This was the period when a rapidlyindustrializing Belgium recaptured thedemographic lead. In 1800 Belgium andLuxembourg had 3’2m people (againstthe Netherlands, 2’Im): in 1900 69m(against 5’2m). In the 20th century,however, the Netherlanders have overtaken their rivals again, the 1975 figureof 135m being comfortably ahead ofthe southerners’ lOm. The growth ratecontinues relatively high: the prediction

for the year 2000 is of the orderI 6m.

One plausible reason for the relativehigh birth rate it is currently the higest in Western Europe is rivalry FIween the Protestant and Catholic cotmunities. Although Protestants hadominated Dutch history there is nthat much difference in size, especinow, for in this century the Protestarhave been losing ground to I

Catholics. From 3 : 2 at the beginningthe century the Protestant lead haslen to a current ratio of 5: 4. The rolemigration has been complex. Neat0’25m Dutch nationals returned friIndonesia after this erstwhile colegained its independence; they were ftlowed by a similar number of EurasiacOther post-war immigrants total neal0’Sm, but as over the same period methan Im Dutch have emigrated thesuit has not been a change in overall nitbers but merely an increase in diversit

35

The Netherlands

Primary Sources

Caesars account of Belgium yields afigure of 0’3m for the area within tile presentfrontiers. There are no useful data for the Netherlands north of the Rhine duringperiod nor for either Belgium or the Netherlands during the Dark Ages. The postbegins to improve in the 13th century, by the 15th century the fiscal data are coand nit/i the introduction of parish registers in the 16th century the material at t

disposal of the historical demographer becomes as good as an)’ in Europe. Thereajithe story is straightforward’ a population count was carried out by the Austrian autkities in Belgium in 1784 and several counts were made in both Belgium and INetherlands during the French occupation (1795 1813). The union between thehalves of the Low Countries established after the Napoleonic wars lasted just kenough to allow the taking of the first proper census in 1829. The Dutch have cent’the series every ten years as planned (switching to years ending in nought in 1920):’Belgians started a new series of their own in 1846 (switching to years ending in neat’in 1880).

16?

£ .2: —-

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00 —— — —

Europe Area 4b

When the last Ice Age came to an endthe few thousand hunters who wereroaming the North German plain followed the reindeer to Scandinavia, leaving the country to various food-gathering groups of only marginallymore sedentary habits. This mesolithicpopulation gradually increased in sizeuntil by the 6th millennium ac it numbered some 25,000. At this point the firstfarmers appeared. They came fromthe south-east, bringing with them thesimple techniques which mark thebeginning of the neolithic: they soonmade Germany an important centre forthe further diffusion of the lndoEuropean ethnic group to which theybelonged. Numbers rose to O3m by3000 Bc (the end of the neolithic) and toIm by 700 nC (end ol the Bronze Age).

As the Indo-Europeans multipliedthey differentiated. In Germany therewas a polarization between the Teutonsof the north (and Scandinavia) and theCelts of the south (and Gaul). Eitherbecause they were fiercer, or multiplyinglaster, or both, the Teutons had theCelts on the run from the start. By 58BC when Julius Caesar arrived on theRhine there were few Celts left on theGerman side of the river and a Teutonicinvasion of Gaul was imminent. Luckilyfor Caesar the 3m Germans of his daywere split into so many quarrellingtribes that he was able to defeat the fewwho crossed over without too muchdifficulty: Celtic Gaul survived as aprovince of the Roman Empire.

West Germany O-25m km2East Germany 0-urn km2

For the next four centuries theRomans prevented the Germans fromexpanding westwards and surplusGermans whole tribes of themsometimes had to seek their fortunesin the east. Then in AD 406 Rome’sRhine frontier collapsed. With the empire at their mercy (and the Huns attheir heels) the Germans poured acrossthe river, the most adventurous to foundkingdoms as far away as Spain andNorth Africa, the more prudent to carveout flefs from the nearer parts of Gaul.The dramatic success of this out-migration, the famous Volkerwanderung,did more than relieve population pressure in Germany, it turned the eastof the country into a demographicvacuum. Slays from Poland soonlapped over this area.

West Germany became part ofChristian Europe when it was incorporated in Charlemagne’s empire (AD

800). Less than two centuries later itformed the core of the major politicalunit of the time, the Holy RomanEmpire of the German Nation’. TheEmpire was, to put it mildly, a disappointment, but the coincident demographic and economic upsurge was realenough. Between 1000 and 1300 thepopulation of Germany more thandoubled, rising from under 4m to 9m:everywhere old villages grew largerwhile new villages were founded wherepreviously there had been only virginwoodland and heath. The developmentproceeded from west to east, borne on a

Bibliography

* Russell puts the Low Countries in 1200 at ‘about a million’. No one has directlyestimated the population at i/ic ,nedieral peak, though itis generally accepted that this‘las at least equal to the population in 1500. All the data for the Netherlands froni 1500to the present day ha,’e been fully worked up by Slither “an Bath. whose figures for thearea of the modern Netherlands are presented in his article in * Glass and Revelle andat greater length hut still hi English in A. A. G. Bijdragen 12(1965). No one has asyet done the same for the equally good Belgian material, though a quantitative lie,,’ of’Belgiwn ‘s demographic history is contained hi the o,’erallflgures for the Low Countriesgiven by R. Mo/s in his contribution to the * Fontana Economic History of Europe(Vol. 2. Chapter I).’ subtracting ran Bath c figure from Mo/s’ yields a series for thesouthern half of the Lou’ Countries “cr~’ shut/ar to that used by us.

The recent tnaterial on migration to ctndfroni the Netherlands is ‘tell summarized in* Kosinski.

EUROPE AREA 5 Germany0-36m km’

67

175tide of migrating German peasantrywhich was eventually to overwhelm theSlays of the eastern part of the countryand restore the ethnic unity of the whole.

This chapter of Germany’s demographic history was closed by the bubonicplague. By 1400 the population wasdown to 6Sm. Growth was resumed, atfirst with some hesitation, in the I 5thcentury. By its end the population wasnot far short of the previous peak of 9mand by the end of the 16th century thetotal was 12m. By the outbreak of theThirty Years War in 1618 it was l3m.

The demographic effects of the ThirtyYears War have been the subject ofmuch academic dispute. In someinstances the apparently catastrophiclosses have been shown to be due toshort-term flight by people whoreturned to their homes when the armiesmoved on. And clearly it is dangerous togeneralize from the places where severeloss has been substantiated because thewar left parts of the country relativelyunscathed. However it is generally accepted now that there was a significantdrop in population in most areas. Thewar did enormous damage to the economy and as a result the nutritional standard and health of the community wereundermined. Plague and other diseasesstruck repeatedly and harshly. By thetime hostilities ended Germany was asad place: its people were certainly muchpoorer and probably about 2m fewer.

By 1700 the losses of the war hadbeen repaired, by 1800 Germany was acountry of 18m people, and in the early19th century, as the effects of the demographic revolution became apparent, theauthorities began to talk of the problems of overpopulation. In some of themore despotic principalities there wasan attempt to force the birth rate downby legislating against the marriages ofjuveniles or paupers: more enlightenedstates did what they could to encourage

emigration.The outflow increased as thecentury progressed. By 1900 nearly 5mGermans had left for the New World afigure that has been increased in thiscentury by a further l5m.

Even so, the growth in populationwas very fast. By 1914 the area withinthe present-day frontiers contained 53mpeople. Urbanization and industrialization enabled these millions to supportthemselves at a better level than anyonecould have expected but nevertheless sohuge an increase was bound to strainany society. That it had done so wasapparent in the political demand forLebeusraum, one of the features thatmade Germany such a worry for herneighbours. The course was set for thefirst of the two world wars.

Germany paid heavily in these conflicts. The first cost I6m German lives,the second 3Sm (05m of themcivilians). Curiously, the greater lossdoes not kink the population graph, forit was offset by the arrival at the war’send of 4m refugees from the East andthe Sudetenland.

The two states into which Germanyhas been divided since its defeat in theSecond World War have very differentdemographic courses. East Germanyhas suffered a steady loss of populationto its more prosperous neighbour: this,in a nation with a near-zero naturalgrowth rate, has caused a fall in totalnumbers from l85m in 1946 to l7mtoday. The West German story is theopposite. As the economic miracle’ hasunfolded, so people have been suckedinto the country from progressively further away. At first the strength of thepull was concealed by a continuing flowof refugees (another 6m since the immediate end-of-the-war influx): then itseemed that it could be satisfied bymovement mainly of Italians withinthe EEC. But since the 1960s specialarrangements have had to be made

Germany

150

125

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00, 0000000000000000000000 fl 000000000 Ott, 0 tt) 0 U’ 0 U’ 0 U’OW 0 0) 0cc) — ,_~ — — 40≥

1975~

Europe AreaS68

Empires and Republics

The First German Reich was created in the 10th century AD by the Saxon emperors.They brought under their rule an area corresponding to the modern states ofGermany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands plus the eastern borderlands ofFrance, two thirds of Czechoslovakia and the northern two thirds of Italy. Thisconglomerate, the famous ‘Holy Roman Empire’, originally had a population ofabout lOm. It ceased to be an effective unit around 1200, by which time its population had increased to 16m, However, it continued to have some political meaningnorth of the Alps, so we have included a line on our graph giving the population ofthis area over the period 1300—1800.

During the 18th century a new power emerged within the Empire. the Kingdom ofPrussia. During the 19th century Prussia entirely dominated the other states whichshe assembled first into a Customs Union (1834), then into an Empire (1871), Theincrement in the German population shown for 1850 is due to a purely administrative act, the decision to count the eastern provinces of Prussia in with the rest:previously they had been considered to lie outside Germany. The frontier was soonadvanced again, in 1866 at the expense of Denmark, in 1871 at the expense ofFrance. By 1914 the Empire had a population of 68m.

After the First World War Germany had to return Alsace-Lorraine to France anddonate a considerable amount of territory to the new state of Poland: the initialpopulation of the Weimar Republic was reduced to’~~Hitler annexed Austria in1938 and nearly all Czechoslovakia in 1939: by the time he went to war he wasmaster of a nation of/~i~llions.

Primary Sources

There are al,nost no data on which to base a population estimate for Germany until ire

reach the late Middle Ages. Then there are sonic tax records supplemented in the 16 i/i

century by paris/i registers. The first enumerations were carried out in the 18th centurybut of course relate only to individual states. This unsatisfactory fragmentation Hasbrought to an end by the first pan-Germati census, held in 1853. There here repeatcensuses in 1861. 1867, 1871, 1875 and every five years front then utitil the end of theempire. Inter-ii’ar censuses were taken in 1919. 1925, 1933 and 1939 and there were11,0 post-war censuses covering the ,i’hole of Germany, the censuses of 1946 and 1950.Since then West German,’ has held censuses in 1961 and 1970. and East Germany in1964 and 1971.

70

IIHOLY— — — —

ROMAN‘EMPIRE — — (41), —

(less Italy,— — -— —

Switzerland & 32, 35, I

V KINGDOM

Ii 7~3.75J 1j OF PRUSSIAI ‘r’t I I II I

to bring in ‘guest-workers’ fromYugoslavia and Turkey. Altogetherthere are more than 2’Sm of these‘guest-workers’ in West Germany today.The increase in total population hasbeen in line with the expansion of theeconomy — a rise from 46m in 1946 to a

present day figure of 62m. However,though the economy is still expanding,population growth appears to haveceased and it may well be that in theyear 2000 neither West nor EastGermany will contain significantly morepeople than they do today.

IPopulations of(1)the Holy RomanEmpire(2)the Kingdom of Prussia(3)the German Confederation

and German Empire of1815-1918

(4) inter-war Germany(5) the areawithin the

boundaries of the twopresent day Germanrepublics

175

150

125

100

75

50

25

20

15

10

5

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‘Area within tne’~ —

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.1,. ‘ IGerman republics

I I I\I—I

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 010s 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ‘0 0 ‘0 0 ‘0 0 ‘0 0 ‘010~ co 0, 0 0) 1000 ,, ._. .—, .-, .01~ 1975~~I

Prehistoric Poland was a sparselypopulated land with no more than 5,000inhabitants in the mesolithic, 25,000 inthe neolithic and 100,000 in the BronzeAge. By the beginning of the Christianera the population had risen to 05m,and by the 10th century, when the firstPolish state appeared on the politicalmap of Europe, to l25m. Translatedinto densities per km2 these are very lowfigures a fact which explains not onlythe late appearance of the Polish principality but much about its subsequenthistory.

Medieval Poland was overshadowedby its much bigger and socially moreadvanced neighbour, the GermanEmpire. From the 12th century on,German immigrants were moving intothe western provinces of Poland in significant numbers and they soon set aneconomic pace that the natives couldnot match. During the early 14th century this process reached its inevitableconclusion: Germans of one sort oranother annexed Poland’s northern andwestern provinces — Prussia, Pomerania,the New Mark of Brandenburg andSilesia. Poland lost control of somethingover one third of her population: sayl25m out of 3Sm.

The Black Death brought Poland arespite from German aggression. At astroke it abolished the population pressure that had been the main forcebehind the Teutonic Drang nat/i Ostenand as the thinly populated provincesremaining to the Polish state suffered

relatively mildly from the epidemic therewas actually a shift of military powerin favour of Poland. By the late 15thcentury the verdict of the medievalcenturies had been partially reversed.Germany’s share of Polish territory andpopulation was reduced to less than aquarter say 08m out of a total thathad recovered to the pre-plague figureof 35m. Nevertheless, the loss was considerable and looked like being permanent, for the process of Germanizationwas accelerating in the provinces overwhich the Germans retained politicalcontrol. There had been a significantshift in the ethno-linguistic frontier.

In the 16th and 17th centuriesGerman—Polish relations were relativelytranquil. Behind the scenes, however,the old forces were building up againand though Poland retained her positionin the population league (between 1500and 1750 her population grew 75°c to atotal of 7m) she failed to develop theeconomic and diplomatic skills necessary for survival. Indeed, the Polesseemed to have a natural ineptitude forpower politics. By the third quarter ofthe 18th century this ineptitude hadbecome almost an art form: all three ofPoland’s neighbours, Prussia, Russiaand Austria, were so thoroughlyantagonized that they agreed to sinktheir differences and partition Polandbetween them. In 1795 the job was doneand, though a Duchy of Poland madea brief appearance during one ofNapoleon’s recastings of the political

Bibliography

* Russell gil’e.c a series offigures for the late classical and medieval periods n/itch seen!

i’ery reasonable to us. His first figure is compatible with i/it’ range proposedfor the lateIron Age by G. Mildenherger in Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der Germanen (1972);his pre-Black Death figure is in agreement hit/i that .cuggested kv Beloch in ‘DieBeriilkerung Europas in, Mine/alter’. Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft 3: 405—423(1900). Another series of’figures. this tune covering the period 1200—1800. is given hithe Jahrbuch für Nationalbkonomic und Statistik 1935 (quoted kr Clark. p. 95).For the early cetisuses hi i/ic itidii’idual German states see E. Kei’ser,Bevolkerungsgeschichte Deutschlands (1938). pp. 202—21 and 291—3. For i/ic 19thcentury see the syntheses in ‘Sundbarg and the * Handworterbuch.

There is a bibliography of the controversy 01cr the demographic effects of’the TInnyYears War hi D. V. Glass, Numbering the People (1973), p. 35. n. 72. No one hasdone a really satisfactory job on the 1St/i-century material. For earl)’ Prussia see OttoBehre hi Geschichte der Statistik im Brandenburg-Prussia (1905) and in AilgemeinesStatistisches Archiv, Vol. i’ii(Tuhingen. 1914). ALco the * Handwörterbuch,pp. 672—3.

EUROPE AREA 6 PolandO-31m km’

73

35map of Europe, at the Congress ofVienna in 1815 there was no place forthe Poles. Of the l0m people livingwithin the present-day Polish frontiers4’Sm found themselves in Prussia, 4m inRussia and l5m in Austria.

Depressing though the situation was,the Poles did not lose heart; thereproductive work they did in the 19thand early 20th centuries ensured the survival of the Polish nation. Between 1815and 1914 total numbers expanded by astaggering 300°. to reach a final figureof 30m. The actual increase was evenhigher, for in the second half of this period no less than 36m Poles emigrated:26m to the USA, 02m to other parts ofthe New World, 04m to Germany, 03mto Russia and 0lm to other parts ofEurope.

Whether or not this reproductiveachievement had to have a Malthusianending, the First World War found Polesfighting on both sides and using theirhomeland as a battle ground. By thetime it was all over the Poles hadrecovered their independence but thearea within the present-day frontiershad suffered a population drop of 4m.The Second World War was an evengreater disaster, not so much because ofthe fighting (which claimed 0’5m dead)as because of the Germans meticulouslyplanned extermination of the 3m-strong

Jewish community in Poland and thePoles’ understandably ruthless expulsion of Germans from the westernprovinces, now finally reclaimed for thePolish state. Having been German-ruledsince the 14th century, 7’75m of the 9mpeople in these provinces were nowGerman-speakers: between 1944 and1948 all of them fled or were expelled.This outpouring was only partially offset by the transfer of l’Sm Poles fromthe eastern provinces simultaneously reannexed by Russia and the slow returnof most of the 3m Poles who had fled orbeen deported during the war years: at24m the population of the new Polandwas no greater than it had been in 1914.

Poland has made a rapid recoveryfrom the Second World War: thepopulation is at an all-time high of 34mand though growth is now slackeningthe total is likely to be at least 40m bythe end of the century. Also flourishingare the Polish communities abroad.There are 6m people of Polish descent inthe USA, 04m in Brazil and 0-25m inCanada. Despite repatriations there arestill about l’Sm in the USSR. Twoother Old World communities are ofmore recent origin, the 05m Poles inFrance being mainly inter-war migrantswho worked in the coalfields and the0l5m in England mostly Second WorldWar ex-servicemen.

The Kingdom of Poland—Lithuania (1385—1772), Post-Partition Poland (1773—93),Congress Poland (1815—1914) and Versailles Poland (1920—39)

One of medieval Poland’s reactions to German aggression was to unite withLithuania. at that period master of much of European Russia. In its initial form thisPolish Lithuanian state covered about Im km2 and contained some 7m people: inthe early 16th century it lost 0’2m km2 and a corresponding amount of its population. The lost area was recovered at the beginning of the 17th century only to be lostagain in mid-century and more with it. The final version of Poland—Lithuaniacovered 0’75m km2 and contained 75m people in 1650, rising to 12m in 1772, theyear of the first partition. This reduced the area of Poland to little more than

Poland

00—00000000000000000000000000000000 0~> 0 inc IOQ 100 in~ in t’- m a,00 — — — — OJ

1975

74 Europe Area 6

0’Sm km2 and its population to Sm. Two more partitions (1793 and 1795) and thePolish state vanished completely.

Russia’s share was greatly increased at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. when thecentral block of provinces, which later became known as ‘Congress Poland’, washanded over to her. ‘Congress Poland’ covered 127,000 km2: its initial population of4m increased to 14m over the next century. ‘Versailles Poland’, the sovereign slatethat was created in 1920, was much bigger than this. Though Ihe Germans yieldedlittle, the collapse of Russia allowed the Poles to gain a very favourable frontier inthe east. As compared to present-day Poland, ‘Versailles Poland’ was considerablylarger in size (390,000 km2) and had a slightly larger population (27m in 1920 and35m in 1939). However, it was less Polish it included ôm Russians in the east andleft out 2m Poles in the west. It was only alter the Second World War that Polandrecovered its original, medieval geography and a truly homogeneous population.

Primary Sources

Estimates of’ Poland’s population before the 14th centun’ are based on nothing morei/ian general ideas about likely densities, For the 14th century there are some tax rolls,though whether they provide an adequate basis for even the crudest esthnate is debatable (see * Russell. pp. 146—9). The first really definite figures — definite not necessarilybeing the same thing as accurate — are those produced at the time of the 18th-centurypartitions. For this period,for the whole of the 19th century and the first decades of the20th there are statistics collected and issued by the partitioning powers — Prussia,Austria and Russia.

The reappearance of the Polish state at the end of the First World War n’as followedby the holding of the first national census (1921). Since then there have been censuses in1931, 1946 and decennialli’ since 1950.

Bibliography

The Poles are in the process of producing a ,nulti-vohtn,e history of’the population oftheir country which, when complete, should contain more than anyone would want to

know on the subject. The only volume available so far is K. D:ien’onski and L.Kosinski, Rozwoj i Rozmieszczenie Ludnosci Polski w XX Wieku (Growth andDistribution of Poland’s Population in the 20th Century), Warsaw, 1967. Table 26on p. 130 gives figures for the area within the present-day frontiers during the period1900—1950. Until the appearance of the remaining volumes in the series the best overallaccount — and one that has the ac/rant age of being available in English translation — iscontained in the History of Poland by Aleksander Gie s:tor et al. (1968). a volumewhich pays particular attention to demography.

Populations of ‘ VERsAILLES4~

(1) Poland-Lithuania —~ POLAND~ 1(2) Congress Poland —~

(3)Versailles Poland(4)the areawithinthe

boundaries of the — - — —1’present day Polish Z —

state -

- -I I

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EUROPE AREA 7 Russia-in-Europe4-77m km’

Russia is proverbially vast. EuropeanRussia alone is as big as all the othercountries in Europe put together andthough it has never contained anythinglike half Europe’s population the scale issuch that even very low population densities add up to imposing totals. Themesolithic population can hardly havebeen less than 50,000, the overallpopulation in the 3rd millennium (themiddle of the neolithic period) less than05m, while the figure for the close of theBronze Age (when perhaps half thecountry had become acquainted withthe idea if not the practice of agriculture) will have been over the Im mark.

Not much above this point growthslowed down. Development continuedmuch as before in the middle third ofthe country, but the arrival of the Scythsand their flocks in the south (in the 8thcentury nc) meant that this area thesteppe zone now became fixed in thelow-density pattern associated with pastoralism. The result was the threefolddivision that was to characterize Russiafor the next 2,000 years: nomads on thesteppe (first the Scyths. then the Runs,then the Turks and Mongols), peasantsin the central third (the cradle of theRussian race), nothing up in the north(bar a few Finns). Inevitably theRussians who tilled the soil came to outnumber the steppe peoples who merelyused it for grazing their animals. By AD

900, when the Varangians created thefirst Rus state, the Russians (at 25m)constituted two thirds of the population

of the whole area, while the nomads(who did not have exclusive possessionof the south) amounted to less than asixth.

Numerical advantages are not inthemselves conclusive. In the medievalera, when cavalrymen were worth manytimes their number of foot soldiers, thenomads always gave at least as good asthey got. The Mongols, who in the early13th century became the overlords ofthe whole Eurasian steppe, did much,much better than this. In 1237—40 theirarmies swept across central and southern Russia massacring everyone who didnot immediately surrender, and many ofthose who did. Kiev, the traditionalcapital of the Rus state, was erased fromthe political map and the whole tract ofland associated with it went out of cultivation. As a result the peasant population of Russia which had multiplied upto about 75m just before the stormbroke dropped back below 7m.

The 14th century brought another setback in the shape of the Black Death.Because of the low population densitythe plague did not have the same impactas elsewhere in Europe, but the pest andthe Mongols together added up to muchthe same final effect: they kept thepopulation below the 13th-century maximum lOm for the whole countryuntil the late 15th century. But with the16th century the whole picture changed.The first musket shots announced theend of the nomad’s military advantage,the peasants moved back on to the

Russia-in-Europe

120

78 Europe Area 7

steppe and the resurgent Rus state, nowsynonymous with Moscow, started toadvance its southern frontier inmethodical fashion. By 1600 only theTartars of the Crimea lay outsideMoscow’s control and though theylasted as a political entity until 1783 thesouth had become a predominantlyagricultural area well before the end ofthe 18th century. The population figureof 36m in 1800 80°, greater than the20m of a century earlier reflects the firstresults of this. The main effect came inthenextcentury, when the south made themajor contribution to an overall population growth that was truly explosive.

Russia’s population increase in the19th century was so big—near enough200”, that it transformed the Russiancountryside from a condition of under-population to one of overpopulation.Emigration to Siberia (Sm in the period1870—1914) and the New World (3m inthe same period) siphoned off some ofthe surplus peasantry but it was thetowns that had to take most of the overflow. As a result Russia finally acquired(mostly in the decades on either sideof 1900 when the annual incrementreached 2m) the demographic component needed to make a modern state, anurban proletariat. This was the sectorfrom which the Soviets emerged andfrom which V. I. Lenin, against all expectations, was able to create theBolshevik Revolution of October 1917.

The Bolshevik Revolution occurred in

the middle of a period of war and disaster that temporarily brought the Russian populationjuggernaut toa halt. Evenso the total effect of 2m war dead, 14mother ‘excess deaths’ (mostly due to malnutrition and disease in the later stagesof the Civil War), 2m emigrants and alOm birth deficit was only to put the1925 population back to the 1910 level.Stalin and the Second World War between them were to do about doublethis amount of damage. The militarydeath roll reached a staggering lOm(many of them must have beenoriginally prisoners of war who did notsurvive their captivity or, at least, didnot return from it), other ‘excess deaths’totalled l5m and the birth deficit hasbeen calculated at 20m. This time thepopulation of European Russia was cutback to its 1905 figure.

The post-war recovery has been morethan complete. The present populationof 160m is the largest ever, and thoughthe rate of increase is now slackeningit should reach 190m by the end ofthe century. The great majority areRussians by race but there are someconsiderable minorities: notably lOmTurks of one sort or another (mostlyTartars). Sm Lithuanians and Latvians,3m Estonians and Finns, 2m Jews, ImPoles and Im Germans. Among theRussians themselves one should perhapsdistinguish between Great Russians(more than 60’j, Ukrainians (30°,) andBelorussians (less than 10°,)

330

300

325?

250

200

150

Populations of(1) Kievan Russia - — -

(2) thePrincipality ofMoscow and the — - -

Empire of the Czars - - -

and(3)the USSR ~255

~E~EEEE~USSR————--—— — — -I

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~EE~E~1~ttEH

180

100

Russian and Soviet Empires

The first Russian state, the principality of Kiev, contained about three quarters ofthe population of the area. It soon split into several separate principalities which attheir high point, just before the Mongol conquest of the mid 13th century. had atotal population of some 7-Sm. In the late 15th century the Princes of Moscowmanaged to create a new political grouping. The population of the area they controlled roughly speaking the northern half of the country grew from 7m in 1500

30

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80

Upper palaeolithic man in Czechoslovakia probably numbered less than1,000, mesolithic man no more thanabout 5,000 and it was not until longafter the introduction of farming thatthe total population reached 50,000.During the Bronze Age (2500—1000 ac).numbers rose to 200,000, while the lastmillennium BC saw a relatively rapidincrease to a figure not far short of amillion.

At this point the historical recordbegins. The country lay just beyond theboundary of the Roman Empire and didnol directly experience the pax romanabut it certainly benefited from the prosperity the Romans brought to centralEurope and shared in the generalincrease in population that took place in‘Free Germany’ in the 1st century AD.

The Marcomanni of Bohemia (westernCzechoslovakia) and the Quadi ofMoravia (central Czechoslovakia) werereckoned among the strongest of theGerman tribes: the population of thecountry as a whole will have reached apeak of l25m by AD 250.

For the era this was substantial overpopulation and represented a significantcomponent in the demographic pressurethat was to be one factor in the fall ofRome. In the early 5th century. whenthis event finally occurred, the pent-upenergies of the Germans were discharged in an out-migration thatemptied the Czechoslovak area and allowed its repeopling with the Slav immigrants who have given the country its

O’l3m km2

present name. From now on the Czechs(in Bohemia and Moravia, whichtogether form the western two thirds ofthe country) and Slovaks (in Slovakia,the eastern third) form the overwhelming majority of the population.

At the best of times the departure ofthe Germans and the arrival of theCzechs and Slovaks would have causeda dip in the population graph. Comingas they did in the Dark Ages themovements caused a sharp drop to alow of 07m in AD 600. But by the year1000 the loss had been recovered and forthe three centuries following, the boomperiod of the medieval population cycle,there was rapid growth to a new peak of3m.

The process of clearing and colonizing new land, which went on all overEurope at this time, was spearheaded inthe Czech area by German immigrants:they brought their superior skills toboth countryside and town and all alongthe perimeter of Bohemia establishedthemselves as a substantial minoritythe Sudeten Deutsch. Their arrival emphasized the political incorporation ofBohemia and Moravia in the GermanEmpire just as the relative absence ofGermans from the eastern, Slovak, thirdof the country reflected the fact that thisarea lay beyond the imperial frontier.

Czechoslovakia seems to have suflered less from the Black Death than therest of Western Europe. Though growthwas halted, reversed and resumed in apattern not so dissimilar from that of

EUROPE AREA S Czechoslovakiato 14m in 1700. The rise was almost entirely due to natural increase, the only newterritories added to the realm being sparsely inhabited lands in the south-east.

The decline of Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries gave the Tsars the opportunity to advance westward and add some better-populated provinces to their empire.By 1800 they controlled an area equivalent in population to the present-day territoryof the USSR in Europe. By 1815 they controlled an even larger area and a population in European Russia alone of 44m. This number tripled over the next 100 years.reaching 65m in 1850, lO7m in 1900 and 133m on the eve of the First World War.The Asian part of the Empire grew even faster: from 3m in 1815 to Sm in 1850, 26min 1900 and 37m in 1914.

The USSR in its inter-war form started off with a population of l35m (95m inEurope). This had increased to him (II Im in Europe) by 1939, when the annexation of the Baltic States and half Poland boosted the total to 194m. On the eve of theGerman invasion in 1941 the figure was near enough 200m.

Primary Sources

The first tax records sufficient to provide an indication of the pop ulation of the Russianstate date from 1678/9; firm figures begin with Peter the Greals enumeration oftaxable male subjects in 1722. Repeat enumerations hence the tern, revisions i,’erecarried out in 1762. 1796. 1815. 1835 and 1859. The first and only full census of the oldRussian Empire was carried out in 1897: the Soviet authorities hare taken censuses in1926. 1939, 1959 and 1970.

Calculating population figures for present-day European Russia from the revisions’and the pre-Second World War censuses involves besides subtracting the populationof the Asian parts of Russia from tile global figures adding and subtracting populations on the nester,, frontier so as to bring this line into the post—1945 position. Theadjustments needed are large, bitt so Ic the Russian population, and the errors inherentin the process are not sitch as to afflict the overall picture significantly.

Bibliography

The population of Kievan Russia is discussed in • Russell (p. 100) and that of 16th-century Musco”y in Carsten Goehrk~s Die Wustungen in der Moskauer Rus (1968;see particularly p. 258). For the 17th, century see Borish Pushkarev c calculations asquoted in Volume 5 of George Vcrnadskys History of Russia (1969). p. 745; for theperiod frotn Peter the Great to the first Soviet census Frank Lorhnerc The Populationof the Soviet Union (1946). The results of the two most recent censuses are ,iell set outin Paul E. Lydolph, Geography of the USSR (2tidcdn, 1970).

83

35the continent as a whole, the fall innumbers was relatively slight and themedieval peak comfortably exceeded bythe year 1600. By that date the Czechand Slovak populations totalled about4’Sm, This figure proved to be anotherisolated peak, however, for it was inBohemia that the notorious ThirtyYears War broke out (in 1618) and herethat it did its worst damage. By the timethe peace of 1648 was signed the population had shrunk by a fifth by a quarterin Bohemia and it was not till the endof the century that the antebellumlevels of population were regained.

The 18th and 19th centuries were aperiod of accelerating growth. Thepopulation rose from 4’5m in 1700 to6’75m in 1800 and l225m in 1900. Andnatural increase was even higher thanthese figures indicate. Because of thelimited economic opportunities in theirhomelands. Czechs migrated in greatnumbers to other parts of ‘GreaterAustria’ (by 1910, 8°, of all Czechs livedin the Austrian capital. Vienna) and

Slovaks to other parts of ‘GreaterHungary’ (by 1910, 5°, of all Slovakslived in the Hungarian capital,Budapest). Both Czechs and Slovaksalso left for the New World in droves.something like 2m between 1850 and1914.

The Czechoslovak state establishedafter the First World War experiencedfar less emigration. However, the rate ofnatural increase fell off so sharply during this period that the population hadonly risen to t4’4m by 1939. The SecondWorld War drastically lowered even thisfigure. Those of the Sudeten Germanswho did not flee when the Russiansliberated the country were soon expelled by the new Czech government:altogether 2’4m people moved out,reducing the 1945 population to a figureof 12’2m no greater than the population of 1900. Since then the loss hasbeen made up but little more than that:at 14’6m the present population total isonly marginally greater than the pre-warfigure.

Czechoslovakia

30Prague.

BOhEMiA

25

15

10

5

4

3

2

Primary Sources

A considerable amount of primary material exists for Czechoslovakia for the precensus period. but his difficult to obtain an adequate idea of it in the West. Bohemiashares in the general European pattern of taxation counts existing from the late MiddleAges, and parish registers from the late 16th century. Summaries survive of a 1702count ofall people over the age often. The picture for Moravia is less sat isJhcrory. theearliest taxation data being 17th cent urv. Both Bohemia and Moravia were covered hrthe Austrian military census of 1754 and the subsequent revisions, and by the series oftrue censuses starting in 1857 (see Austria). In Slovakia there is almost nothing to goon prior to the military census which, because of Hungarian objections to theprocedure. was not taken in this area till 1784. Since the creation of the czechoslovakstate, censuses have been held in 1921. 1930, 1947 (Bohemia and Moravia only), 1948(Slovakia only), 1961 and 1970.

Bibliography

There is a useful sumtnarv of the demographic history of Czechoslovakia in Demek andSteide. Geography of Czechoslovakia (1971). The earlier sources are surveyed kt’ V.Husa in • Colloque (p. 237). The tnaterial for the Czech lands from 1754 ott is usefullysu,,itnarized in too articles in Annales de demographie historique. 1966 and 1967.

15.

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84Europe AreaS

35EUROPE AREA 9 Switzerland and

AustriaO-12m km2

9a Switzerland O-04m km’

Switzerland, which vanished entirelyunder the Alpine ice cap during the lastIce Age, remained an unpromisingenvironment even when the glaciersretreated to the mountain tops. A fewfamily-sized bands will have penetratedthe country at the end of the upperpalaeolithic and a few hundred peoplefound a living by the lakes in themesolithic. but significant populationof the country began only with theintroduction of agriculture in the 5thmillennium ac. By the year 4000 we canthink in terms of a population of 15,000and a growth rate sufficient to doublethe population every millennium. WhenCaesar entered the country the CelticSwiss, the l-Ielvetii, numbered 250,000.

All over the Roman Empire there wasa progressive drop in population in the3rd and 4th centuries AD. Switzerland(Raetia), a much-raided frontierprovince, suffered a very severe dropand when the Empire finally fell in theearly 5th century the land was nearlyempty. At this point the Alemani movedin, making the eastern two thirds of thecountry German-speaking. As theinhabitants of the western fifth and ofthe southern slopes of the Alps continued to speak the late Latin languageswhich were to evolve into French andItalian respectively, Switzerland hasbeen a multi-lingual area ever since. Theratio between German. French andItalian speakers, roughly 70 20: 5 (plusanother 5 for the rest), has provedremarkably stable.

Population in medieval times followed the general European trend.There was a period of increase, cut backin the 14th century by the Black Death,the loss being recovered in the course ofthe 15th century. The 16th century wasmarked by the introduction of anothersocial division, this time in the sphere ofreligion. Roughly 60”, of the Swiss wereto end up on the side of the Reformedfaith, another proportion that hasstayed much the same through the centuries.

In the late medieval and early modernperiods, Switzerland was, by the standards of the era. overpopulated. Thecantonal governments tackled the resultant unemployment and balance ofpayment problems by arranging toprovide mercenary armies for anyonewilling to pay for them. The solutionwas certainly Malthusian. for it hasbeen calculated that between 1400 and1815 a million young Swiss died in otherpeople’s wars, a loss that was ten timesgreater than the loss by orthodox emigration. Fortunately, from the mid 18thcentury on, the country was industrializing sufficiently rapidly to render the export of live Swiss by either method unnecessary: indeed by the late 19th century immigrants were as numerous asemigrants. As a result, the proportion ofaliens resident in Switzerland reached1500 in 1914, and though the figuredropped to 50, during the inter-warslump it has since risen again to 15°,,and more. The present-day prosperity of

30

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4

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7.5?

86 Europe Area 9ti


Apart frotn Julius Caesar ~s exaggerated accoutit of the Helretii (368000 before hedc/eared then,. I 10,00(1 afierwards). data usefid /br the estimation of Switzerland’spopulation begin to appear only in the 14th centuri’. The firs? official estimate, a suri’et’of partsh registers. was made in 1798, the first actual enumeration in 1836—8 and thefirst in the present series of decennial censuses in 1850.

All the data bearing on the size of the ,nediei’al popitlation hai’e been ,,‘orked up k’Wdhehn Bickel. whose figures from 1300 on are quoted in Kurt B. Mayer’s ThePopulation of Switzerland (1952), a hook which aMa covers the rest of the demographic htctor of the cowitry.

Austria is a mountainous country andits population density has never beenhigh: total numbers amounted to only20.000 in 3000 BC, when farming communities had already been established inthe lowlands for more than a thousandyears, and the Bronze Age was nearlyover before the population reached100,000. Even when respectable figureswere attained 05m in the late IronAge, on the eve of the Roman conquestof 15 ~c: 0’6m during the 2nd centuryAD when the Roman province had itsbest years they were not sustained. Asthe Empire declined numbers fell backto 0’Sm and after its fall they went aslow as 04m.

The immediate post-Roman centuries the Dark Ages saw Slays.Germans and Hungarians fighting eachother for possession of Austria. In theend the Germans came out on top, aresult that is marked by the formal establishment of the Austrian state in the10th century. The subsequent upturn inthe country’s fortunes was dramatic,New villages appeared everywhere.

indicating significant expansion in boththe intensity and extent of cultivation:population tripled, reaching 2m by theearly 14th century. Austria had justifiedits place on the map of Europe.

The 14th-century crisis reducedAustria’s population by a third, a losswhich was not recovered until the early16th century. Growth then resumed, the2’5m mark being reachcd by the endof the 16th century and marginallyexceeded by 1618. when the ThirtyYears War began. Austria escapeddirect devastation in this conflict but itcould not escape the economic dislocation and outbreaks of plague that accompanied it: once again numbers fellback and thc 17th century ended withthe population no greater than it hadbeen 100 years earlier.

This slow-quick-slow pattern wasrepeated in the modern period. The risefrom 1750 to 1850 was 45”,,, whichsounds reasonable but was a lack-lustreperformance compared to the overallEuropean increment of 90”,~ From 1850to 1900 things went much better, the

Switzerland has been at least partly wonby an underprivileged immigrant labour

force (mostly Italian) sandwiched between the Swiss and their machines.

35

30

Austria

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

9b Austria O-08m km2

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70

The Austro-Hungarian Empire

In 1526 the Hapsburgs of Austria inherited Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia and as muchof Hungary as they could keep the Turks out of. The population of this bloc was notfar short of 7m, a total which rose to II in with the liberation of all Hungary at theend of the 17th century. A further boost, to about 18m, came from the acquisition ofa motley collection of new territories — Belgium, Milan, Sardinia and the southernthird of Italy during the war of Spanish succession (1701—13). Over the next fewyears the Italian provinces underwent a confusing series of changes, most of themunfavourable, and in 1742 Prussia annexed Silesia: however, Austria’s share in thepartitions of Poland (1772—95) brought in sufficient new people to raise the population of the Empire to a new peak of 24m.

Napoleon had it in for Austria and in his heyday the Hapsburgs were forced torenounce their Belgian and Italian provinces. The loss of Belgium proved permanent, but large parts of Italy were awarded to Austria at the Congress of Vienna(1815), and this territorial recovery plus an accelerating rate of natural increasecarried the imperial population to a new high of 35m by 1850. The rate of increasenow became so fast that the loss of the Italian provinces to the forces of the risorgimento caused only a small kink in the population graph. By 1914. on the eve of thewar that was to prove its death knell, the Empire’s population was 52m.


From 1754 on the course of Austria s population history is sure for sufficient data areavailable to bridge the gap between the official population estlinate ,nade in that yearand 1857, the year of the first proper census. The imperial authorities took a secondcensus in 1869 and a decennial series in the years 1880—19 10. The Republic has takencensuses in 1923, 1934 and decennially since 1951.

Before 1754 there is abnost nothing: we can only assume that the demographicpatterns followed our general rules and make estimates on that basis.

Figures for the years 1754 1973 for !fte area of modern Austria are given inStatistisches Handbuch für die Republik Osterreich, 1973. For the Austro-HungarianEtnpire in the 18th cent ut; see R. Gurtler Die Volkszahlungen Maria Theresas undJoseph lls (1909), and in the 19th-century Sundbarg and the Handworterbuch.

increase of 50°,, matching the Europeanaverage. Here immigration from theoutlying provinces of the HapsburgEmpire to Vienna, its capital, was animportant factor. Conversely, when theHapsburg conglomerate was dismantledafter the First World War, Austria lostimpetus. The population gain since thenhas been barely a million and Vienna

has actually shrunk from 2m in 1918to l’Sm today. The city’s cosmopolitan and polyglot image has also gone.The Nazis eliminated the country’s lastsizable minority, its 0-Sm Jews,leaving Austria with a population thatis remarkably homogeneous: it isnow 90°,, Catholic and 99°,, German-speaking.

60

50

40

10

8

6

4

2

Populations of(1) the Austro-Hungarian - — - -

Empire and - - -

(2) the area within theboundaries of the - - -

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In the prehistoric period Hungaryspopulation grew from the few thousandwho lived there in the mesohthic to100,000 in the neolithic and some300,000 in the Iron Age. Recorded history begins with the Roman conquest ofthe western half of the country in 9 Bc.This half, which contained two thirds ofthe population, became the province ofPannonia and the River Danube, whichdivided it from the relatively empty eastern half, the frontier of the Empire.

The frontier held till the 3rd centuryAD. Then barbarian invasions broughtsuccessive waves of depopulation andrepopulation as the original inhabitantsfled and were replaced by wanderingtribes of Germans, Huns or Slays. Thedemographic nadir was probablyreached during the Avar supremacy inthe 7th century AD. The Avars, like theHuns, were full-blown nomads fromCentral Asia and as such liked to keeptheir grazing land free of peasants. Intheir day Hungary probably containedno more than 200,000 people, half ofthem Avars and their dependants, halfof them frightened peasants of debatable ancestry.

Hungary received its definitiverepopulation at the end of the 9th century when the Magyars, a people ofFinnish stock but Turkish habits, arrived from the Russian steppe. Ahundred years later the Magyars hadabandoned paganism and pastoralism infavour of Christianity and settled cultivation, Hungary had joined the

medieval European community and thepopulation of the area had begun toincrease.

Medieval Hungary, though Increasingin prosperity with each generation,remained by European standards arelatively underpopulated country- Assuch it suffered less severe and lesslasting damage than the rest of Europeduring the 14th-century pandemic ofbubonic plague known as the BlackDeath- By 1500 the population hadreached a record level of l’25m- On thehorizon however was a new threat, theOttoman army, which was to prove aharsher brake on population growththan the plague bacillus. The Ottomansfollowed their easy victory at Mohacs(1526) by occupying half Hungary: byfailing to occupy the other half theycondemned it to the even worse fate of ano-man’s land in what now became anunending struggle between Cross (asrepresented by the Hapsburgs ofAustria) and Crescent for the Balkans.While in the rest of Europe there wassteady growth, the population ofHungary barely held steady at the preMohacs figure.

These dark days ended with theTurkish failure before Vienna in 1683and the subsequent liberation ofHungary by the Austrians. The 18thcentury was one of rapid growth, a sortof catching-up performance that morethan doubled the population. There wasa slight slowing-down in the rate ofincrease in the early 19th century, then,

EUROPE AREA 10 HungaryO-09m km2

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Hungary

21?

S S — ° ° ° 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0no Q0000000g,•OJ~O~ocoo—oJø~U, 10 t’- 0 0o o _-. ,-, — —

1975~~1

92 Europe Area 10

alter 1850, the growth rate picked upagain as Hungary became involved inthe pan-European processes of urbanization and industrialization, Taken as awhole the 19th-century growth ratematches that of the I 8th.

Hungary has not done so well in thiscentury. Though the dismemberment ofthe Kingdom of Hungary at the end ofthe First World War was carried outaccording to virtuous principles it isdifficult not to feel that people who hadpicked the winning side, like theRomanians, did better than people whohad sided with the Central Powers.Hungary’s ethnic purity (it is nowhomogeneously Magyar) was created by


See under Roniania.

allotting to the new state only impeccably Magyar areas- As a resultalthough there are no Romanians inHungary there are l-5m Magyars inRomania. An attempt to reverse theverdict of the First World War duringthe Second proved abortive, and after atemporary expansion at the expense ofits neighbours Hungary resumed itsVersailles frontiers. It had lost 0-Smdead in the process, a heavy blow for acountry ol9m people. Moreover growthin the post-war period has been veryslow: the 1975 population is only 10-Smand the projection br the end of thecentury no more than lIm.

With the introduction of agriculture inthe 6th millennium ac Romania’spopulation rose sharply from itsmesolithic level of some 10,000 to morethan 100,000. By the Iron Age the totalnumber of inhabitants must have beenaround 0-75m, of whom three quarterswill have lived in Dacia, as Transylvaniawas known at this time. The other halfof Romania, Transcarpathia, was partob the Scythian realm, an empty worldob occasional herdsmen and even moreoccasional family camps: its onlyagricultural settlements were a couple ofGreek colonies on the coast and a scattering of villages along the southern andeastern fringes of the Carpathians.

The distinction between settled andpastoral lands remained much the sameduring the Roman period (AD 106—270),during the German occupation of theCarpathian area (270—370) and the Hunsupremacy (370—470). Following this theSlays moved in and for the first time theTranscarpathian steppe received asprinkling of peasants. Despite razziasby whichever nomadic tribe was temporarily dominating the Russian steppe,this Transcarpathian peasantry surviveduntil the second half of the 11th century,when the Patzinak Turks, drivenwestward by the Cumans, moved intothe area- In the presence of the CentralAsian Turk no settled life was possible.From then until the end ob the 13th century Transcarpathia was desolate again,the preserve of the nomad and hisflocks. As a result its population in the

O-24m km2

year 1200 was probably little greaterthan it had been in 200. However, forRomania as a whole the figure was up abit: Transylvania was beginning to sharein the rising prosperity of the HungarianKingdom of which it was politically apart -

In the late 13th century the nomadtide finally ebbed, peasants returned tothe steppe and the history of modernRomania begins. The Romanians saythat the colonists on this occasion weredescendants ob the original Romanizedinhabitants of Dacia still speaking a language of Latin type (which Romanianundoubtedly is) and now emerging fromtheir Carpathian refuges after a thousand years of total obscurity. Most historians, on the other hand, incline tothe view that the Romanian speakers(Vlachs) came from south of theDanube where there is no doubt thatLatin-derived languages had continuedin use throughout the Dark Ages.Whatever their origins, the Vlachs madea success of their colonization; thepopulation of Transcarpathia began toincrease rapidly and, despite a dip in thecurve following the Black Death, thefigure for Romania as a whole was over2m by thc first quarterof the 16th century.

The Turks of the steppe may havewithdrawn from Romania for good butby the 15th century the Ottoman Turkswere advancing from the south, TheRomanian principalities, Transylvania,Wallachia and Moldavia, becameOttoman protectorates, a condition

95

EUROPE AREA 11 Romania

which exposed them to both Turkish exploitation and Christian assaults. Economic and demographic growth wasstunted and remained so until the 18thcentury. Then came comparative peaceand a quickening national pulse. Both inTransylvania (liberated by the Austriansat the beginning of the century) andTranscarpathia (increasingly protectedfrom Ottoman exploitation by theRussians) the population more thandoubled between 1700 and 1800. It wasto double again in the 19th century. Bythe time of the creation of the modernstate of Romania at the end of the FirstWorld War the population had reached13m. Not all of them were Romanians:the population included 0’75m descen

dants of the German colonists who hadsettled in Transylvania as far back asthe 13th century, 0’75m Jews and no lessthan l’75m Magyars.

Romania is one of the few Europeancountries that have retained a high rateof increase in the 20th century: the 1975figure is nearly twice that for 1900 andthe projection for the year 2000 is 25m.The population is more uniform than itwas at the beginning of the century: theJewish community was all but annihilated during the Second World War:there are less than half a millionGermans left and though there are stillI’5m Magyars they now amount to lessthan 7”, of the population instead ofover 10°,,.


Since i/ic end of the First World War the Ro,nanians have field censuses in 1930, 194),1948. 1956 and 1966. the Hungarians in 1920. 1930. 1941, 1960 and 1970. During theinter-war period Hungary had the same frontiers as today but Ro,nania “as “onsiclerably larger.’ afigure for the 1930 population oft/ic present Roman/an area is givenin Fru,nkin,

For i/ic period prior to i/ic First World War i/ic’ data are best considered underthe headings not of Hungary and Ro,nania hut of Ciscarpat/na (Hungary andTranst’lvania) and Transcarpat/iia ( Wallac’hia and Moldai’ia).

ciscarpathia * Be/or/i’s guess at i/ic population iii Pannonia 47 per km2 needsreducing to 3 or so for Ciscarpathia as a n’ho/e. This is act uall;’ the density proposed byKovaesics ( Colloque, pp. 249ff) for AD 900. Kovacsic’s’ surrey covers i/ic medievaland earl;’ modern periods: lie quotes ;,‘hat figures are available, though these do notreally amount to ‘nut/i before i/ic expulsion oft/ic Turks. 77w earliest Austrian e,iuineration (a gross u,ic/erestiniate) n’as carried out in 1715: i/ic first accurate returns arethose of 1787. In 1857 there “as a proper census. another follon’ed in 1869 and adecennial series corers i/ic years 1880 to 1910. Figure.cf?r i/ic area of’modern Hungaryarc’ not too difficult to cci rac’tfroni tlwse Austriati censuses: a series starting in 1840 isgiven iii Al. Pecsi and B. Sarfali’i. The Geography of Hungary (1964).

Transearpathia The evidence prior to i/ic first Ro,naniati enumeration. that of /859, isi’e;’ien’ed hi’ Stefàn Pascu in • Colloque, pp. 283 4 It amounts to ‘io more than a ,fèwincomplete tax roTh for the period from i/ic late 161/i century oti and though these give

an idea of’ rates of grout/i i/ic)’ ;‘ie/d figures fuir total population that are far too Ion’.Even i/ic c’owit of’ 1859 underestimated i/ic population by about 1000. Reliable figures

Romania

--

S S ~ 5 O ° ° ° ° 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0• oj o~ S S 52 ~ 5 ~ 5)05)0 II’ 5050500 — — — — ,oam ~ 1975_I

§6Europe Area II

begin with the quinquenniah censuses held between 1884 and 1899. The best figures forthe 19th century as a whole are those calculated by sundbdrg: the gap between themand the beginning of the First World War is covered by the census of 1912.

Approximate figures for the area of modern Ro,nania can be obtained by adding onethird of the figure for Ciscarpathia to the figure for Transcarpathia.

The palaeolithic artists who producedthe later Spanish cave paintings camefrom a population that is unlikely tohave exceeded 5,000. Numbers grew to50,000 with the improvement in climateduring the mesolithic period (8th millennium BC) and then to some OSm withthe introduction of farming (4th millennium BC). By the beginning of theBronze Age (2000 BC) the total was lm,by its end (1000 BC) 2m, and by the timethe Romans established control over thearea in the last century ac it was 4m.

The Roman Empire had a couple ofgood centuries during which Spain’spopulation multiplied up to Sm, then, inthe 3rd century AD, it got into a badeconomic scene. As a result populationfigures began to slip back everywhere,Spain included. In the early 5th century, when Rome was sacked and theEmpire fell apart, the downward trendaccelerated. The Barbarian Invasionswere not directly responsible the number of Germans who settled in Spain forexample was probably greater than thenumber of natives they despatched butthe classical Mediterranean economywas now on its last legs and could n..~longer support anything like the numbers it had in the past. Conversely ifthere is any significance to the fact thatthe arrival of the Arabs on Spain’s doorstep at the beginning of the 8th centurycoincides with the first signs of recoveryin the peninsula, it lies not in the number of Arabs, which must have been tiny(30,000 at most), but in the vigour of

their culture. They revitalized both theagriculture and the urban life of thesouth.

Though the Arabs did not conquer allSpain they had things pretty much theirway till the early 11th century: twothirds of the country was under Moslemrule by then and Moslems numbered08m, or a fifth of the total population.In the later 11th century the Christiansof the north recovered, in the 12th — asthe country’s population rose past the Smmark they re-established themselves asthe dominant element politically. Thislocal change in the balance of power isan aspect of an important Europeanevent, the shift in the demographiccentre of gravity from the Mediterranean littoral to the Atlantic (seeFig. 1.10, p. 28). As far as Spain isconcerned the 13th century was the onethat clinched it. The last importantbattle of the reconquista. the Christianvictory at Los Navos de Tolosa, wasfought in 1212 and in the populationboom that followed (and whichincreased total numbers from 55m to7Sm) the Moslem component was excluded. By 1300 Spain was definitelypart of Christendom again.

The medieval boom came to a stickyend in the Black Death, which cut thenumber of Spaniards back to 5Sm. Inthe early modern period this loss wasrecovered, while accidents of inheritancein Europe and of discovery on the highseas turned Spain into a world power.By the middle of the 16th century

99

EUROPE AREA 12 IberiaO-59m km’

O-50m km2- (including the Balearic Isles but ex

12a Spain cluding the Canaries)

the 75m inhabitants of the Spanishkingdoms were the mainstay of theHapsburg Empire. which controlledmore ihan 20 of Europe’s 90 millionsand 9m of the l2m natives in the NewWorld.

The Hapsburgs were proud of thefact that they used their power in thecause of Catholic uniformity. In doingso they were certainly in accord withSpanish sentiment which had applaudedthe expulsion of the country’s 150,000Jews in 1492 and was to be equally approving when the last 250,000 Moslemsreceived the same treatment in 1609 14.But the policy was wrong. TheProtestants of the north of Europe hadcut loose from the old ways of doingthings and were getting richer all thetime: if Spain couldn’t beat them (whichshe couldn’t) she ought to have joinedthem. But the choice was made forCatholicism and a Mediterranean orientation. Consequently the country was sobadly hit by the economic crisis of theearly 17th century — during which thepopulation dropped back to 7-5magain that by the time it had recoveredit was hopelessly behind. At the beginning of the 18th century, without somuch as a by-your-leave, Spain’s alliesand enemies took over her empire anddivided it up among themselves.

Spain’s population increased duringthe 18th and 19th centuries but did sorelatively slowly: numbers were onlyI I5m in 1800 and 185m in 1900. Theincrements, which are equivalent to

12b PortugalA pattern of prehistoric developmentsimilar to Spain’s took Portugal from apopulation of a few hundred in the latepalaeolithic to a few thousand in the

44° and 61”,, respectively, compare unfavourably with the 50”,, and 116’,,achieved by Europe as a whole. In the20th century the Spanish rate of growthhas accelerated: the gain of 84”, in thefirst three quarters comfortably exceedsthe European average of 63°,,. In political terms this could be seen as a succcss for Spain’s leaders, who kept thecountry out of both world wars: howeverthe Civil War of 1936—9 cost over 05mlives, proportionately as big a loss asthat suffered by the United Kingdom inthe First and Second World Wars puttogether. Probably the best way of looking at the increase is as a catching-upoperation by a community that, in termsof social evolution, had fallen unnecessarily far behind its neighbours.

Emigration from Spain has a long history but its net effect is difficult to quantify. Probably only 100,000 people leftthe country to settle in the New World(mostly Mexico) in the 16th century.However, what with shipwreck, diseaseand death in battle we can guess that thenet loss must have been at least twicethis. By the end of the 18th century thecumulative total must be reckoned atmore than Im and we know that a further 2m left in the 19th century (most ofthem for Argentina, Cuba or Brazil). Inthis century the outflow to the NewWorld has been about Im while a further Im have gone to Europe and NorthAfrica. How many of this last group willreturn home in the long run remains tobe seen.

O’09m km2(excluding Madeira and the Azores)

mesolithic and to a few tens of thousands after the establishment of farming(3000 ac). By the time of the Romanconquest there were 04m people in the

-

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100 Europe Area i2a

area, a number that rose to nearly haifamillion by the end of the 2nd centuryA D. From there to a third of a million atthe Dark Age low point, 06m by AD

1000 and l’25m by 1300 is a relativelybetter performance than average; infact it puts the country — as is only right

in the Atlantic rather than theMediterranean category.

The Atlantic was to be Portugal’shighway to success. In a sustained programme of exploration through the 15thcentury, Portuguese seamen mapped outthe Cape route round Africa to India: inthe 16th century the rewards flowed in.The new-found wealth supported a 6O~rise in the country’s population (to 2m),an increase achieved despite the veryconsiderable manpower drain — a netloss of 125,000—imposed by the newoverseas commitments.

After 1600 most of the fizz went outof this situation. The Dutch elbowedtheir way into all the best routes, leavingPortugal with only Brazil and a ramshackle collection of outposts that hadlittle rhyme, reason or profit to them. Inthe homeland numbers slumped (tol75m in 1650), recovered (to 2m in1700) and though they then started to

grow again there was little economic justification for this. To escape the life ofrural drudgery that otherwise facedthem some 2m Portuguese emigrated toBrazil in the period 1700—1950: this outflow held the increase in the homelanddown to a factor of 4 over this period asagainst a European average of 5.

Following the Second World Waremigration rose to new heights. Another0’3m people left for Brazil. governmentsettlement schemes in Africa built upthe white populations of Angola andMozambique from less than 02m tomore than 0’6m, while the spontaneousmovement of workers to France createda resident Portuguese population thereof 0’ 5m. The subtractions were sufficientto prevent much increase in the numbersat home: between 1950 and 1975 thepopulation only managed to increasefrom just under to just over Sm. Nowthat the African settlers are all hurrying home and job opportunities forforeigners in France are contracting,Portugal’s population must start to goup again faster than this. It is likely tobe nearer 9m than Sm by the end of thecentury.

Primary Sources

Population estimates for Roman Iberia are better founded than most, for Pliny(Natural History III, 23—28) has preserved the results of a census taken in Galicia (thenorth-west corner) at the beginning of the Christian era: his figures are equivalent to adensity of 10 per km’. For the medieval period there are records of various hearthtaxes the earliest a Catalonian one of 1281—5 — but these pose a lot ofproblems: howmany people lived in a house, how many houses were excluded, how does one areacompare with another? The first documents that even pretend to be complete are muchlater a Portuguese tax roll of 1527—8, two Castilian ones of 1541 and 1591—4. andone for Navarre of 1553 and even they are full of d(fficulties. Not till 1717 were allthe Spanish kingdoms assessed in the same way at the same time.

The first direct counts in Spain date from the late 18th century specjfically 1768,1787 and 1797: it is generally considered that they left out about l0°~ of the population. The first absolutely reliablefigures were not obtained till the census of 1857. Sincethen there have been censuses in 1860. 1877, 1887. 1897 and every ten years from 1900

102

Portugal

9?

21

1 -

00o~ 000 — — — _JD~

1975

Europe Area 12b

on. The Portuguese series is: 1801, 1821. 1835. 184!. 1854. 1858, 1861. 1864, 1878.1890. and then decennial/i’.

Bibliography

* Russell, who endorses Beloch ‘.cfigure of 6mfor the earl)’ Ro,nan period. carries hissur we i’ through to medieval times with a complete sequence of estimates: as usual hedips a hit loner in the Dark Ages than we do. Braudel has a usefid discussion of’ thedifferent 16th-century estimates: he final!)’ conies to the conclusion that Spain had apopulation of about 8,,; and Portugal one ofabout In; at the time. By contrast Mols inhis cotitribution to * Cipolla favours I !‘3m for Iberia as a whole at the same date. Forthe 17th centurl’ see the *Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. 4:for the18th cent u, M. Livi Bacci in Population Studies 22(1)1968 (summary in • Glass andRe relIc).

General works that pay particular attention to the demographic factor are J. VicensVii’es’ An Economic History of Spain (1969) and A. H. R. de Oliveira Marques’History of Portugal (1972). For tnigrat ion figures see * Reinhard and * Kosinski.

Europe Area 12

Throughout the later prehistoric periodItaly was the second most denselypopulated country in Europe (the firstbeing Greece): we can think in terms of0-Sm people by 3000 BC, Im by 2000 Bcand 2m in t000 BC. In the early tronAge around 700 BC the rate of increasequickened: by 400 Bc the area contained4m people and when Rome succeeded inunifying the peninsula (which it did inthe fifty years on either side of 300 ac)the manpower at its disposal immediately made it the leading power ofthe Mediterranean world. And successfed on itself: as tribute and slaves flowedin, Italy’s population rose to reach Smby the end of the Punic wars (200 ac)and 7m by the beginning of the imperialperiod (AD I).

Seven million was more people thanthe Italian farmer could feed and it wasonly because Rome now commandedthe resources of the Mediterraneanbasin and could bring in wheat fromNorth Africa (particularly Tunisia andEgypt) that such a figure could be sustained. Even so the situation was a vulnerable one and when the RomanEmpire got into trouble, which it did inthe mid 3rd century AD, Italy’s population was among the first to register adecline. With the complete administrative collapse that followed theBarbarian invasions and the sack ofRome in the early 5th century the decline became precipitous. FinallyJustinian’s reconquest, which was accompanied by famine and plague on an

O-30m km’

apocalyptic scale, brought the population to a 6th-century nadir that can beestimated at around 3-Sm.

During the early Roman period thenorthern third of the country had beenthe peninsula’s underdeveloped area. Itcaught up in the imperial heyday and bythe time Italy emerged from the DarkAges it was the north that was settingthe pace. Indeed it set the pace forEurope as a whole: by the 12th centuryit had become the most economicallyadvanced part of the continent. Its twomajor seaports. Venice and Genoa,almost monopolized Europe’s tradewith the Levant, while the goods andservices generated by them and by suchinland cities as Milan and Florence werethe essential elements of the medievaltrading network. As part of this upsurgeItaly’s populaton passed the bestRoman levels in the course of the 12thcentury to reach a total of lOm by theend of the 13th.

In Italy as elsewhere in Europe theBlack Death cut the population back bya third. However the economic baseremained unimpaired, recovery duringthe 15th century was steady and by theearly 16th century the figures for mostareas were as high or higher than thepre-Black Death equivalents. The setback that took place at the beginning ofthe 17th century was more sinister fdrit reflected the economic consequencesof the discoveries of Columbus andVasco da Gama the shift of Europe’seconomic centre away from the

EUROPE AREA 13 Italy

64?

50

TRANS -

CAtJCASIA

70

Italy

60Milan• Venice

Genoa

.Florence

••Rome

40 -~~~~~ S -

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8

6

4

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‘0 t ~00 — — — —$4 1975—i

106 Europe Area 13

Mediterranean to the Atlantic and awayfrom Italy to the Low Countries. TheItalian standard of living began to decline. At the end of the 17th century thepopulation was little larger than it hadbeen at the beginning, the country as awhole a great deal poorer.

In the 18th century the population didbegin to increase again. The situationremained unhealthy, however, for theincrease was greater in the countrysidethan in the towns: Italy, which had oncehad the most urbanized and sophisticated population in the continent,seemed to be in danger of becoming arural slum. In the early part of the 19thcentury the trend was much the same:then industrialization and emigrationbegan to alleviate the situation. Industrialization, which was almost entirelyrestricted to the north, allowed Italy torecover a little of its former economicstatus. Emigration helped too, thoughthe quantitative aspects of this are morethan usually difficult to assess because

Primary Sources

Italians emigrating as young adultsoften returned to Italy when their working days were over. A fair summary isthat over the years 1881 1936 the neteffect was a reduction of about 6m inthe total for Italy. Or! to put it anotherway, the population on the eve of theSecond World War, which was 44m,would have been 50m if there had beenno emigration at all.

The pace of industrialization hasquickened in the 20th century and as aresult the Italian standard of livinghas greatly improved. However. Italy,though homogeneous in terms ofreligion and language, remains in economic terms two nations to this day: thenorth is thoroughly European. the southalmost North African. Internal migration is as yet only mitigating not closingthe gap between the two. Sicily, forexample, with near enough 10°,, of thearea and population of Italy, is responsible for only 5°,, of the gross nationalproduct.

As might be expected, ,?iore pop ulation figures have survived for Roman Italy i/ian foran)’ other part of the classical world. But though it could i.e/I be true i/tat the census ofRotnan citizens was an institution as old as Route itself the Romnans believed it theearliest extant figures, which purport to relate to the 6th century ac, are merelynotional and anyhow refer to too small a part of Italy to be of much moment. By thelate 3rd century cc the available figures ore far ,nore interesting, being consistent,believable and covering most of the peninsula. Front this date until the death ofAugustus in AD 14 there is sufficient information available for us to chart the population of the country with confidence.

For the late Roman period there are ‘to reliable data, The hiatus lasts through theDark Ages and up to the establishment of the first of the Renaissance archives in the12th century. All Italian city states in the Renaissance period collected demogta~the form.ofdirect~means all the data surv e,but hc16thcenutry~~..pç,e,p,~ceagain in a position to make a reasonable estimate of the countrj~v.population. There-after. despite the political fragmentation of the country, the course of the populationgraph is sure, if tedious to calculate. The first in the present series ofdecennial censusesfollowed immediately on the unification of the country in 1861.

108 3~ I~f o—nd o~ft€’i ~orr”~

Bibliography

The controversies over the interpretation of the Rotnan statistics are reviewed atidresolved in P. A. Brunt. Italian Manpower 225 BC AD 14(1971). For the period AD

500—1450 see J. C. Russell’s contribution to the • Fontana Economic History ofEurope, Vol. 1. The perioclfi-om 1500 on is covered by Julius Beloch in his monutnental, posthumously published Bevolkerungsgeschichte Italiens (3 votc.. 1937, 1940.1961). A summary of’ his figures. adjusted for the area of modern Italy, is gil’en itt

Cipolla ‘s contribution to * Glass amid E,’ersle,’.

J~J~~ (~.)~

70

Because agriculture came to Europefrom Asia via the Balkans! the Balkanpeoples were the first Europeans to experience the neolithic transformation.As early as 5000 ac the area’s mesolithicpopulation of 25,000 had been replacedby a peasant society numbering 0’25mand over the succeeding millennia thetotal grew last enough to bring it to 2min the course of the later Bronze Age(13th century BC).

By this time Europe had imported asecond art from Asia. the art of writing.The entry point was Greece, the scriptthat evolved was the ‘Linear B’ that theGreeks used for their accounts, andfrom these it is obvious that their societyhad reached a degree of sophisticationthat puts it on a level with the contemporary civilizations of the Near East.Greece was far in advance of the rest ofthe Balkans, let alone Europe. a factthat we can be sure was reflected in thepopulation distribution, If 2m peoplelived in the Balkans in 1250 BC, Im ofthem lived in Greece.

The Greek colonization of Cyprusdates to this period of prosperity, thecolonization of lonia to the next phasethe first Greek ‘Dark Age’. During thislittle-known period literacy was lostand, given the degree of social disintegration suggested by this fact and by thearchaeological record, the populationmay well have fallen back a bit. If it didit certainly rebounded. When the classical period opened in the 7th centuryBC the country was in the throes of a

population explosion that was carryingits share of the Balkan total over thehalf-way mark and the absolute figurepast 2m. State-sponsored emigrationcreated a Greek overseas population(excluding lonia and Cyprus) of not lessthan O’Sm, but completely failed to haltthe rise in numbers at home. By the mid5th century the Greek peninsula andarchipelago contained 3m people 60°,,of the Balkan total of Sm.

Classical Greece an alpha-plussociety on any ranking fits snugly intothe idea that overpopulation brings outthe best in people. For the Greeks at thetime the situation was less comfortable:there were few places for would-becolonists to go that weren’t already fullyoccupied, and taking other people’splaces meant war of the sustained sortthat the Greeks were least good at. Aftera few false starts the military set-upneeded was evolved by the Macedoniansand in the spectacular career of theMacedonian King Alexander the Greatthe Greek demographic crisis found itssolution. As a result of Alexander’s victories the whole of the Orient as far asIndia was thrown open to Greek settlement. Greeks became the rulers, thedefenders and the bureaucrats of Egyptand Asia Minor: the population, theproblems and the achievements of thehomeland began to dwindle.

Greek numbers continued to fallthroughout the last three centuries BC,

which was a period of slow growth elsewhere in the Balkans. By the days of the

EUROPE AREA 14 The BalkansO-55m km2

14a Yugoslavia14b Albania14c Greece

O’26m km2O-03m km’O-13m km2

14d Bulgaria 0-urn km214e Turkey-in-Europe O-02m ‘

The Balkans

60

~1

10

8

6

21

0

.1000 80 ~ 000000 0 0

0 0

— — — —

m 1975~l

Ito Europe Area 14

Roman Empire Greece contained only2m people out of a Balkan total of Sm.The shift in emphasis continued into theByzantine period: in the general declineof the 5th to 7th centuries the Greek losswas disproportionately large and by thetime the first signs of recovery were visible in the 8th century the populationdensity of the peninsula was no greaterthan that of any other part of theBalkans.

The most important event of this erawas the replacement of most of thenative peoples of the Balkans by Slaysfrom north of the Danube. This repopulation created the ethnic basisfor thc modern states of Yugoslavia(previously Illyrian) and Bulgaria(previously Thracian) and inserted astrong Slav component into the otherBalkan communities. But though theSlav flood swept over the whole of theBalkans it did not sweep away everyone.In Greece the littoral fringe and theislands provided a refuge for the Greeknation and language which were eventually to recover their original territory:in the Albanian highlands the Illyriantongue survived as it does to this day.

In the medieval period the populationof Greece picked up from less than amillion to a million and a quarter, thepopulation of the Balkans as a wholefrom 3m to Sm. The arrival of the BlackDeath and the Ottoman Turks in the14th century put a stop to this recovery:the latter also introduced a new elementof heterogeneity, for, by the early 16thcentury. in addition to 4m Christians(3m Orthodox, Im Catholic), there wereIm Moslems, most of them colonistsrather than converts. The numbers ofboth Christians and Moslems increasedin the 16th century: then, as elsewhere inthe Mediterranean. there was a demographic recession in the 17th centurybefore the strong rise typical of recenttimes began in the 18th.

By this time the Ottoman Empire wasin decline and its subject races werestruggling to regain their freedom. Serbia (the prototype of Yugoslavia) andGreece both managed to establish theirindependence by 1830, Bulgaria not till1885. When the frontiers vis-à-visTurkey were finally sorted out in theearly 20th century, there were still largeMoslem minorities in all these countriesand the last new statc to appear. Albania.actually had a Moslem majority. Sincethen migrations, forced or spontaneous,have steadily reduced the numbers ofMoslems in Greece, Bulgaria andYugoslavia (where the proportions aredown to I’ 8”,, and 10”,, respectively)while in Albania everyone is now officially communist.

Of the various Balkan countriesAlbania is the one with the highestgrowth rate indeed, at 3”,, it has thehighest growth rate in Europe. Yugoslavia has the biggest minorities (075mAlbanians, 0 Sm Magyars. 025mTurks but no Germans since the flightof the 0’3m who lived there before theSecond World War). Yugoslavia alsohas the problem of tension between theCroats (Catholic and westward-looking)and the slightly more numerous Serbs(Orthodox and eastward-looking).Greece is the most homogeneous.though its homogeneity has been achieved at a high price: after the finalGreco-Turkish conflict of 1918 22 therewas an enforced exchange of minoritieswhich brought in I’3m Greeks fromTurkey and entirely removed the 03m-strong Turkish community in Greece.

The area likely to grow fastest in theremainder of this century is Turkey-in-Europe. The expulsion of its Greek andArmenian citizens 4O~ of the wholeand the disfavour of the Turkishgovernment after the move to Ankarahad the effect of stunting Istanbul’sgrowth in the first half of this century.

25?

4?

10?

10?

5?

Europe Areas 14a—e112

Now the increasingly European orientaLion of the Turk and the opening ofthe Bosporus bridge should lead to a

strong resurgence in the economy anddemography of this corner of thecontinent.

EUROPE AREA 15 The Islands

Primary Sources

The classical Greek historians contain clear indicanons of the orders of magnitudeinvolved in ancient Greek demography, though they provide very little to go on ,,‘he,i itcomes to the rest of the Balkans. The Dark Ages are a blank for both. The first overalldata appear in the Ottoman period in the form ofhearth counts: totals for the count of1525 are given on p. 39 of VoL 4 of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe andin map Jbrni in * Braudel (Vol. 2, p. 662): the original publication is by 0. L. BarkanJournal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. I (1957), p. 9. For surethere are more Ottoman counts to be found: together with the counts taken by theVenetians in the islands (notably Crete, which the)’ hung on to till 1669) and the ltlorea(ii’hich they briefly incorporated in their Empire in 1685—1715) this means that one dayit should be possible to chart the course of Balkan demography since 1500 with a highdegree of confidence.

The first censuses were taken shortly after independence in Greece (1828),Serbia Yugoslavia (1830) and Bulgaria (1888). They have been held irregularly onaverage once a decade — ever since. Albania ~s first census was taken in 1923, the nextnot till 1945. For Turkey-in-Europe since the First World War the situation is the sonicas for Turkey-in-Asia (Asia Area Ia).

* Beloch devoted more space to 5th-century Greece than to any other part of the

ancient world: on the whole his figures have stood the test of titne. His overallfigure forthe Balkans in AD 14 is less well founded (Jbr the area as defined here it works out at4’Sm) but is certainly acceptable. For the medieval period see Russell. for the 16thcentury • Braudel and for the modern period * Clark, Their calculations do not d~ffersign(ficantly from ours.

Almost no work has been done on the demography of the prehistoric period: anexception is Cohn RenfreiVs article in Man, Settlement and Urbanism (ed. P. J. Uckoet al. (1972)). There is also an absolutely first class regional survey by W. A. McDonaId and G. Rapp The Minnesota Messenia Expedition (1972): this covers the wholespan front the Early Bronze Age to modern times though it is basically concerned withthe period before 1200 BC.

15a Cyprus 9,250 km2

Cyprus has had a peasant population aslong as anywhere in the Near East atthe very least since the 6th millenniumBC. Slow growth from a few thousand atthis time, to some tens of thousands inthe Late Bronze Age, covers the prehistoric demography of the island. Thepopulation then enters the 100—200.000band within which it remains for thewhole of the period from the Iron Ageto the mid 19th century. It touches theupper limit during the halcyon days ofthe Roman Empire. again during theCrusader era (13th century) and duringthe final phase of Venetian rule (16thcentury). It falls back sharply with theBlack Death and, more lastingly, afterthe Turkish conquest.

The Turks conquered Cyprus in 1571.The subsequent decline in the island’spopulation is well documented. Thetotal was down to 120,000 by 1600 and


* Beloch ‘s suggestion of 0’Sm in AD 14 seems too high no’,’ that we have the Venetian

and Ottomanfiguresfor comparison. These, which constitute the first hard data for theisland, are clearly set out by T. Papadopoullos in his Social and Historical Data onPopulation (Cyprus Research Centre, 1965). The census series runs decennially front1881 to 1931 since when there have been censuses in 1946. 1956 and 1960.

Bibliography

little more than 100,000 in 1650. There itremained for about a century and a half,the first signs of recovery coming in theearly 19th century. When the Britishtook over in 1878 a rising trend was wellestablished: the census that they carriedout three years later revealed that thetotal was nearing 0’2m again. Subsequent growth has been steady to0’3m by 1920 and 0’Sm by 1950.

Ottoman rule was responsible for theintroduction of a substantial Turkishminority (currently I8°~) in an otherwiseGreek population. In 1974 the Turkishgovernment intervened militarily onbehalf of this Turkish Cypriot community. The present situation of de factopartition has caused economic havocand makes it unlikely that the island willachieve the population growth foreseenfor it a few years ago.

15b Malta 316 km’ 15d The Azores Nine major islands totalling 2,300 km2

The Maltese islands were first colonizedaround 5000 BC. Within a millenniumthe settlers were raising megalithictemples on a scale which suggests thatthere must have been several thousandof them and if this is true the first phaseof the population graph must be anextraordinarily fiat one: neither theRoman nor the early medieval peaks arelikely to have exceeded 20,000 and thisis known to have been the number of


Maltese when the Knights of St Johntook over in 1530. The knights and theirretainers added some 5,000 to this figureand initiated a period of growth whichdoubled the population over the nextcentury and brought it to 100,000 by1800. The 200,000 mark was achievedearly in this century and 300,000 by1950. Emigration—a net loss of 100,000in the last fifty years is now tending toslow down the increase.

This mid-Atlantic island group wasuninhabited until discovered (between1427 and 1452) and settled (from 1439on) by the Portuguese. At first the rateof population growth was high, with the60,000 mark being reached by 1580.Since then it has been slower: it took till1800 to achieve the 150,000 level and till


1900 to get to 250,000. In the early 20thcentury population actually fell asunemployed Azorians sought a betterlife in America, and a second wave ofemigration has recently cut numbersfrom the all time high of 327,000reached in 1960 to the present figure of290,000.

15c IcelandIceland had perhaps been visited by theodd Irish hermit prior to its discovery bythe Vikings in the late 9th century, butthe settlement was a Norse achievement. Within half a century say byAD 925 the population had reached30,000 and the flow of immigrants hadceased. Natural growth over the nextthree centuries produced a peak figureof 70,000; then the climatic deterioration of the 14th century caused theprocess to reverse. Over the next threecenturies the total slowly dropped to50,000 at which level it remained till the

100,000 km2 (only I”,, arable)

beginning of the 19th century. Thesefigures are, of course, averages; after abad harvest the population would fall abit, to recover over the next few years.Particularly catastrophic harvest failureshad longer-term eFfects: the famine of1784, for example, caused a fall to38,000. and recovery to the 50,000 leveltook a decade.

Iceland escaped from this Malthusiansituation in the 19th century. By 1900the population had reached 80.000, by1950 it was 140,000, and the total todayis over 200.000.

Madeira was settled by the Portuguesein 1420. Population grew rapidly from100 in 1425 to 2,000 in 1460, 20,000 iq1510 and 30,000 in 1550. At this pointthe sugar producers who were responsible for the island’s prosperity foundthemselves being undercut by Brazilianplanters and as a result both economicand population growth faltered. Thingsbegan to pick up again when theMadeirans made the successful switchto viticulture for which the island was

finally to become famous. Between 1650and 1750 the increase was from 33,000to 50,000 and steadily higher totals havebeen recorded since 110,000 in 1850,150.000 in 1900 and 270,000 in 1960. Bythe end of this period the limits of comfort had been exceeded and despite thegrowth of a prosperous tourist trade,there has been a small but significantdrop in numbers over the last decade.The present population is near enough aquarter of a million.


Iceland has excellent in Jut! almost unparalleled early records, notably two lists offar.ns. the Landnamabok of c.930 and a list ing oJ’c.1095. The Ice/ant/ic authorities canaLso take credit for holding the first census to satisfi’ modern criteria, the census of1703. The later censuses lb/low the Danish sequence, for the island had been politicallyincorporated in Scandinavia in 1262.

For a good outline see S. Thorarin.vsotic article in Geog. Rev. 5). (1961).

15f The CanariesThe easternmost of the Canaries is visible from the African coast and it is surprising that firm evidence of human

Seven major islandstotalling 7,300 km2

habitation dates only from the earlycenturies of the Christian era, the periodwhen the ‘Fortunate Isles’ are first

For the prehistoric period see Before Civilisation by Cohn Renfrew (1973), pp. 15411:For the medieval data) the hearth and head counts carried out by the knights, and thecounts (1828. 1837) and censuses (front 1842) taken by the British see M. Richardsonin H. Bowen-Jones et al., Malta: Background for Development (1961).

Counts are available from the 16th century, censuses from 184!. See T. BentleyDuncan. Atlantic Islands (1972).

15e Madeira 800 km2


As for the Azores but for the early years the data are better: see A. H. D ‘OliveiraMarques, History of Portugal (1972).

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Part Two

Asia

Fig. 2. I Asia, subdivision into areas

I NEAR EASTIa Turkey-in-Asia (Anatolia)lb Syria and the LebanonIc Palestine and JordanId ArabiaIc IraqIf IranIg Afghanistan2 RUSSIA-IN-ASIA2a Caucasia2b Siberia2c Russian Turkestan3 MONGOLIA4 CHINA4a Chinese Turkestan and Tibet4b Manchuria and Inner Mongolia

4c China proper4d Taiwan (Formosa)5 KOREA6 JAPAN7 THE INDIAN

SUBCONTINENT7a Pakistan. India and Bangladesh7b Sri Lanka7c Nepal8 SOUTH-EAST ASIA8a BurmaSb Thailand8c Indo-China8d The Malay archipelagoSe The Philippines

ASIA: OVERVIEW44m km’

A generation ago we had a fairly clear idea about the ‘neolithic revolution’,the appearance of the first food-producing as opposed to food-gatheringcommunities. It all happened in the Near East in a zone that was centredon Palestine, Syria and Iraq. This was almost the same as the ‘fertilecrescent’, the area within which the first civilization appeared a millenniumor two later. Now, alas, we know more and understand less. It appears thatdifferent styles of food-producing evolved in many different places, oftenvery slowly and undramatically, and, of particular interest to us, the demographic upsurge that it had been assumed would always accompany thechange-over to food production seems to have been absent in some important instances. For example, during the period 5000 3000 BC knowledge ofagriculture spread right across South-East Asia from Burma and Thailandon the mainland to the easternmost islets of Indonesia. Yet the tenfoldincrease in population that one would expect to result took at least another2,000 years to achieve. (Our assumptions are that the number of food-gatherers in the area in 5000 BC Is unlikely to have been less than 02m (cf.Australia) and that the 2m level was not reached until some time in the lastmillennium BC, a fair deduction from the trend in the historical period.)

However if we cannot always rely on agricultural innovation to explainwhy some Asian peoples multiplied and others didn’t we can at least saythat where there was no agriculture there was no real growth. Between10,000 BC and 400 BC the population of Asia increased from lm to 80mbut the number of people in Siberia, Korea and Japan barely rose at all.From the Urals to Honshu the only inhabitants were simple hunters andfishermen: there may have been 02m of them, certainly no more.

Where then did all the Asians of 400 ec actually live? The answer is thatnearly all of them lived in peasant villages in the Near East (12m), China(30m) or India (30m). These were the three areas which from the start ofagriculture had made it their essential activity, which by the 4th century BChad already produced major civilizations and which were to continue to actas the cultural foci of the continent throughout its history.

The oldest of the three is the civilization of the Near East, which had itsoriginal centre in the country known to the ancients as Sumer and Akkad,to the classical world as Mesopotamia and to the present day as Iraq. Here,

3500

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I

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1000

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Fie. 2.2 Asia, continental total 123

Thechange in the value of thesymbol lakes care of Iheoverall growth since Fig. 23so the distributions can becompared direclly. Thestriking features are Iherelalive decline of the Near Eastand, oulside Asia, of Egypt.Note also Ihe shift from Industo Ganges in India.

Macedonian Empire in Europe (Greece)in Africa (Egypt)in the Near East (less Arabia)in Central Asia and India

TOTALNUMBER IN ASIA

3Om3.5

120

200135, or two thirds

Note the concentration ofAsia’s population in theNear East, the Indiansubcontinent (particularlythe Indus valley) and China(particularly the Yellow Rivervalley).

.

)

•1

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‘V

I m people

Fig. 2.3 The Old World; population (l,sgrthunrm in 3000 BC

long before anywhere else, the agricultural revolution produced a full-blown demographic response, with villages growing into towns andregional population densities rising to levels of 10 per km2. This was thetake-off point lbr a new series of ‘firsts’ which give the Sumerians a fairclaim to be the inventors of civilization: they include the first writing (certainly), the first bronze casting (probably) and the first wheeled vehicles(possibly). Because of the boost given it by these remarkable peoplewhose ethnic identity is a complete mystery the Near East got a headstart in the population league and for most of pre-classical antiquity wasable to keep its share of the Asian total at about 25’~ say 2~5m out oflOm in the early 3rd millennium, Sm out of 20m in the early 2nd millennium and 9m out of 36m early in the last millennium BC.

Then the picture changed. Though the Near East’s population growthcontinued it was outpaced by India’s and China’s. By the 5th century BC

both India and China were in the 25 30m class while the Near East’s totalwas less than half of this. As a fraction of the figure for Asia as a whole ithad sunk to a sixth (cf. Figs. 2.3 and 2.4).

The Near East also lost ground in relation to Europe. The failure wastechnological as well as demographic: the Persian Empire Asia’s biggest

Fig. 2.4 The Old World; population disirihution in 400 BC

yet was smartly rebuffed when it attempted the conquest of Greece in the5th century BC and it put up a surprisingly ineffective resistance to thecounter-invasion of Alexander the Great and his Macedonjans at the endof the 4th century. Within a dozen years Alexander succeeded in reducingthe whole region to provincial status.

Alexander’s empire was basically the old Persian Empire plus Greeceand must be accounted an Asian state in terms of population:

However, if the demographic centre of the Empire lay in Asia its drivingforce was clearly European and its conscious aim was to promote theGreek way of life. The number of Greek settlers was, in absolute terms,

124 125

insignificant no more than O25m but as agents for the spread ofHellenism they proved sufficient. Later the Romans took over the Greekrole and for the rest of the classical period the western Near East was partof their Empire. The eastern part did recover its independence under theParthians but it remained completely overshadowed both numerically (5mas against 45m) and culturally.

The Near East may have lost out to Europe in the classical period, Asiadid not. Not only were there more Asians than Europeans, there were moreIndians or Chinese than Europeans. And both India and China had bynow produced civilizations of comparable sophistication to Rome’s. Whenwe say India we are talking of a social unit, not a political entity, forattempts to create a pan-Indian empire only came near to success on twooccasions: in the 3rd century BC when the Maurya emperors conqueredmost of the sukcontinent and in the 3rd century AD when the Gupta kingsestablished control over the northern half. As neither of these Indian empires lasted much more than a generation it is fair to say that the normalcondition of the area was one of political fragmentation. China’s story isthe exact opposite: the dozen states that divided the Yellow River valleybetween them were brought together by Shi-huang-ti, the ‘First Emperor’,in the late 3rd century ~c and union was the rule thereafter. The scale wascolossal. During the Han period, which lasted from 206 BC to AD 220, theChinese Empire always had a comfortable edge over Rome in terms ofnumbers: when Rome’s population was 40-odd millions, Han China’s wasmore than 50 million. In a world ranking of empires China had taken theplace that was to become customary (see Fig. 2.5).

Fig. 2.5 The only sign~icant gap in Chinas monopoly of this sequence conies betweenthe end of the Han Empire in AD 220 and the start of the Sm Empire in the 580s.During this period Cluna was divided into at least two kingdoms, often more, and asnone was as big as the Roman Empire in its undividedform Rome holds the lead duringthe 3rd. 4th and early 5th centuries. After the collapse of the western Roman Empirethere are 100 years hi which the north half of China (the Empire of the Northern Wet)outranks the eastern halfof the Roman Empire, then afew decades in ,t’htch thesituation is reversed, partly because the east Romans expanded. more particularlybecause the Wet State divided. During the later 6th century the founder of the SuiDynasty restored to China both unity and primacy. Since then China has always kepttop position in the population league. There is a moment ofuncertainty in the 13thcentury as the Mongols conquer China and are transformed into the Chinese YuanDynasty, and another in and around the Second World War during which the totalforthe British Empire and Commonwealth exceeds that for the Chinese Republic: inneither instance are we talking ofmore than afew years and in the British case it isdebatable whether we are dealing with a genuine political entity

I 96

In AD 220 the Han Empire fell apart: in 410 Rome was sacked bybarbarians. One feature common to both situations was intervention bynomad tribes from central Asia Huns, Mongols and Turks. There werenever very many of these nomads no more than Sm at the time of whichwe are speaking but their way of life made them superb cavalrymen andas such they had a military impact far greater than their numbers wouldsuggest. The same is true of the Arabs. Only about 20°c of the Sm inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula were bedouin (desert nomads), but this wasenough to give the Arab armies the edge when, inspired by the teaching ofthe prophet Mohammed, they fell upon the Byzantine and Persian Empiresin the mid 7th century. By 800 they were masters of an empire that incorporated the whole of the Near East and added to it Spain, the Maghreband Egypt in the west, and part of Central Asia and present-day Pakistanin the east.

The caliphate, as the Arab Empire is known, was impressive enough,counting some 30m subjects at its zenith. The real Arab achievement,though, was not the creation of this temporal kingdom but the impositionof Islam as the ruling culture of the Near East. In sheer numbers the caliphate was always outclassed by the Chinese Empire now in its secondincarnation under the Sui and Tang emperors (581 906) and once morenumbering fifty millions; indeed the Near East’s relative decline wasactually accelerating, for after China and India with about a third of theAsian population apiece, the 8th-century Near East comes a very poorthird with 20m, little more than 100, of the total. However, the genesis ofIslam puts the Near East back into the world class culturally and in thissense its status has been secure ever since.

*

The rising phase of the medieval cycle brought Asia big gains in numbers: a1000 increase in the 9th century, another 10°,, in the 10th century, 25°c inthe 11th and a definite slackening-off here a bit under 10°, in the 12th.In absolute terms this brought the continental total to 250m. At this pointthe graph turned down. By 1300 the total had fallen to 230m; in 1400 it wasonly fractionally greater.

This turn-around in Asia’s demographic fortunes is marked politicallyby the appearance of Genghiz Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire. Thisgrew to be far and away the most spectacular of all the empires created bythe nomads of Central Asia: at its maximum, around AD 1300, it includedthe whole span of the Old World from European Russia to Koreainclusive, plus most of the Near East and all of China. As Mongol rulespread over this vast area, the population of every part of it dropped andanyone who has read accounts of the way the Mongols waged war wouldexpect no less. But characteristically, peasant populations recover quickly

from such decimations: why was there no recovery by the century’s endor by the next century’s end either? The extra factor in the Mongols’ casewas their determination, where possible, to exterminate the peasantry as aclass. The nomadic way of life was under threat from the way the peasantscontinually encroached on the grasslands. The Mongols not only massacred the peasants, they deliberately destroyed the peasants’ infrastructure:irrigation works, villages and market towns. Then they brought in theirflocks to graze among the ruins. The fall in population was long-lastingbecause there had been a shift from high-density farming to low-densitypastoralism.

Maybe the rise of the Mongols wouldn’t have been so dramatic if themedieval population boom hadn’t been losing steam already, indeed maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all if a downturn wasn’t just around thecorner. But the Mongols certainly made the process as bloody as could beand it was probably due to them that the fall started when it did (almost acentury ahead of the end of the boom in Europe) and was so prolonged(three centuries before full recovery, as against a century and a half inEurope).

The first signs of a resurgence came in the 15th century. By the 16thgrowth was accelerating to unheard-of heights, reaching 35°,, for the century as a whole. There was a fall-off in the 17th century a fall-off but to afigure (10”,,) that was still a high one by normal standards. Since then eachcentury has set a new record: the 18th century 5000, the 19th century 5500

and the 20th century a minimum of 200°,. The 20th-century figure in all itsenormity should not distract us from those for the previous four centuries,which show that, far from being ‘awakened’ by European colonization,Asia generated its own demographic revolution. Of course this must be sowhen you think of it. Except for the British in India the Europeans did nomore than nibble at the edges of the continent until well on in the 19thcentury and they hardly started to do demographically useful thingsimprove communications, create new irrigation schemes before its end.The upturn had come centuries earlier than that.

The specific reasons for the increasing size of the percentage incrementsare obscure: population growth just seems to go like this. The basis must bea favourable long-term trend in technology. Here again it is worth recallingthat Asia’s backwardness vis-á-vis Europe has been greatly overplayed. Inthe 15th century for example the two most important technical developments were the gun and the ocean-going sailing ship: the Chinese were wellabreast of the Europeans in the development of both and only fell behindafter 1500. But even then the Chinese and the other Asians continued toimprove their technology, only they didn’t do it as fast as the Europeans.

This is clear from the late arrival of the ‘demographic transition’ inAsia the point in the modernization cycle when death rates begin to fall

129

rapidly and, because the matching fall in the birth rate only comes in later,the rate of increase receives a special boost. This happened in Europe in the19th century, when the increase rose above lOO°~ (as against 50°,, in the18th): in Asia it didn’t happen till this century, the rate in the 19th beingmuch the same as Europe’s a hundred years earlier.

Considered at a regional level (for the division into regions see Fig. 2.6)Asia’s progress has been far from even. Up to 1900 the Near East continued to disappoint: in absolute terms it more than doubled its populationfrom 21m to 47m but its share of the Asian total sank to 5°,,. Only in thiscentury, really only since 1950, has the Islamic world put on demographicweight. Growth rates are now very high — too high according to some —

and the current figure of l55m represents 7% of the Asian total, a recoveryto the proportion held in 1500.

This does not mean that the Near East is near to regaining the position itheld for so long as Asia’s third most populous region, a title it lost at thebeginning of the 16th century, when Japan emerged as a major populationcentre. Japanese history is almost the opposite of the Near East’s, for it isthe only Asian state where something like the complete modernizationcycle of runaway growth followed by restabilization is visible. The expectation is that between now and the end of the century Japan will add only10% to its present population of I l2m and that its growth rate will thenhave fallen to zero.

Today Japan and Korea together constitute the fourth most populous ofAsia’s regions. They lost their third position to South-East Asia around1850: they are likely to slip another place soon because the Near East isclose behind and gaining fast. South-East Asia’s position as No. 3 seemsimpregnable: throughout modern times its growth rates have been amongthe highest in the world and its current total of 319m is more than that ofthe present No. 4 (Japan and Korea) and No. 5 (the Near East) combined.Moreover it has scarcely begun urbanization, the phase of the modernization cycle that is usually associated with the highest growth rates of all.

This is also true’of the two giants, the Indian subcontinent and China. Itis probable that the Indian subcontinent is now more populous than Chinaproper — our figures are 775m as against 720m — though the Chinese couldwell be level and some estimates put them ahead. It seems certain howeverthat the Indians are multiplying faster and will be more numerous by theend of the century — our figures being l,240m for the subcontinent andl,020m for China proper. This does not mean that China will lose herposition as the world’s biggest political unit, for her outer areas will becontributing another 165m to the republic’s total in AD 2000 and Taiwanwith a further 20m can be expected to have returned to mainland controlby then. This makes a total for the Chinese republic at the end of thecentury of l,200m. By comparison the Indian subcontinent’s I,240m will

Fig. 2.6 Asia. subdivision into regions. Present-dat’ political frontiers are not alwaysappropriate to the discussion ofhistorical trends andfor the purpose of this overviewthe areas of Fig. 2. I have been rearranged to produce this map of regions. The ,nostimportant change is the amalgatnat ion of areas 2c, 4. 4a and 4h (Russian Turkestan;Mongolia; Chinese Turkestan and Tibet; and Manchuria and Inner Mongolia) toproduce a Central Asian region. The remaining part ofmainland Gina, 4c or Ginaproper’, is the,, given regional status, as is Siberia (2b). The Near East is cotnp/eted ~i’the addition of Caucasia (2a), while Japan and Korea (5 and 6) are amalgamated.Areas I. 7 and & are unchanged

130

ASIA AREA 1 The Near East6-76m km2

0

Note how Asia’s demographiccentre has moved east sinceFigs. 2.3 and 2.4. Japan andKorea which don’t figure atall in the earlier maps are nowdensely populated: indeedthey have the highest densitiesof any Asian countries 300per km’ and 225 per km2respectively.

Anatolia is one of the more welcomingol the countries of the Near East and itspopulation has always been considerable. From 40.000 in the mesolithic it

rose to 200,000 in the early neolithic(6th millennium BC). I Sm by the chalcolithic (2500 BC) and 3m during thecourse of the full Bronze Age.

At this time the later 2nd millennium BC the ethnic and political situation was straightforward: in most ofAnatolia the people were of Hittitestock and subjects of the Hittite Empire:the exception was the eastern quarter.where the people were Transcaucasians(the group to which the present-dayGeorgians belong) and independent.This relatively simple picture did notsurvive the upheavals that marked thebeginning of the Iron Age (C.I 100 it C):

two new peoples arrived from Europe.the Phrygians. who crossed theBosporus and moved on to the centralplateau, and the Greeks, who crossedthe Aegean and colonized the Aegeanand Black Sea coasts. By 500 Bc therewere perhaps 0-25m Greeks on the seaboard. 3m Phrygians and neo-Hittites(Lydians. Carians etc.) in the interiorand 0’75m Armenians (relatives of thePhrygians) and Transcaucasians in theeastern mountains all pursuing verydifferent life styles.

The Persians imposed a superficialhegemony on all these peoples: it wasinherited first by the Macedonians. thenby the Romans. It was only in Romantimes that the Anatolians were truly

O’75m km2

pacified and homogenized. By AD 200.when the area had reaped the full benefits of the imperial peace. some SmAnatolians acknowledged the rule ofRome and the cultural heritage ofGreece. A million more dwelling in theArmenian highlands looked alternatelyto Rome and Persepolis as the politicalpendulum swung between these greatpowers.

Seven million was to prove the upperlimit tn a series of population swings occupying the next fifteen centuries. Thelower limit was around Sm. The first dipcame during the phase of late classicaldecline: then, following the Byzantinerecovery of the 9th and 10th centuries,there was a second, far more dramaticcollapse. In the early 1040s the firstTurks had appeared on the easternfrontier: by 1060 the Armenians weremigrating to the western Taurus underthe pressure ol Turkish raids and inlOll the disastrous overthrow of theByzantine army at Manzikert thework of the Turkish sultan Alp Arslanopened the Anatolian plateau to aninrush of Turkish tribes. Within a fewdecades the demography of Anatoliawas entirely recast: the plateau hadbecome the domain of the Turks, theTaurus the refuge of the Armeniannobility, while only the west remained tothe Greek-speaking peasantry who hadseen the Empire through so many crisesin the past.

The arrival of the Turks meant a dropin the overall population of the country

00

C, J 1

4’

la Turkey-in-Asia (Anatolia)

25 m people

Fig. 2.7 The’ 0/el IVorkl; population distribution in 1975

presumably still be divided between India. Pakistan. Bangladesh, Nepaland Sri Lanka. with no more than l,000m (!) in the Indian republic.

The Asian outlook then is sombre. The Indian subcontinent, with itstraditional third of the continental total, is going to remain grindingly poorbecause its population explosion is rural and unfettered by dreams of adifferent life, The Chinese, constituting near enough another third andequally rural, may be able to escape this equation: the communist statepossesses the social machinery for injecting new skills and attitudes atvillage level. However, the Chinese are certainly not industrialized to thedegree where one could expect a spontaneous drop in the birth rate, andwhether their way will work remains to be seen. The regions favoured bynature the Near East. with its huge oil resources, and South-East Asia.which is still relatively underdeveloped have potentially brighter futuresclouded by rates of increase that are doubling their populations everygeneration. Only the Japanese have really got their demography undercontrol and they form a very small slice of the whole now.

133

because the nomadic and pastoral wayof life typical of the Turks at this timecannot support as high a density ofpopulation as agriculture. But as theTurkish conquest moved to completionunder the leadership of the Ottomans,the Turks began to discover the advantages of farming. By the mid 14th century the shift to settled agriculture wasunmistakable and the population wasonce again approaching 7m. For thethird and last time it was cut back again,this time by the Black Death; then in thelate 16th century the 7m ceiling wasfinally breached.

The achievement was to prove something of an anticlimax. Stagnation botheconomic and intellectual now overtookthe Ottoman Empire, even as its armiesand frontiers were still advancing. The17th, 18th and 19th centuries producedonly a sluggish growth and the population had barely reached 13m by 1900.

During the 19th century various cureswere suggested for the ‘sick man ofEurope’: the necessary physic was finallyadministered by Enver Pasha andKemal Ataturk during and immediatelyafter the First World War. Enver was a

startlingly bad general and a sizableproportion of Turkey’s O5m war deadare attributable to his cheerful ideas onstrategy. He also had ideas on minorities. During 1915 a near complete massacre of the million-strong Armeniancommunity was carried out on hisorders, a chilling foretaste of what a20th-century dictator could do. Kemal,the opposite of Enver in every way,created victory out of defeat and his expulsion of most of the 2m Greeks and025m Bulgars who lived in Europeanand Asiatic Turkey prior to the FirstWorld War was as humanely conductedas such affairs can be. Between them thetwo leaders created present-day Turkey;the nation which was for so long atypical example of the polyglot orientaldespotism is now ethnically andreligiously homogeneous and intermittently democratic.

During the remainder of the 20th century the Turks have known peace andachieved a high rate of multiplication.Between 1950 and 1975 the populationof Anatolia nearly doubled: it is now36m and is likely to be approaching 60mby the year 2000.

The Ottoman Empire

The nucleus of the Ottoman Empire the western half of Anatolia and the southeastern half of the Balkans was put together by the first four sultans in the courseof the 14th century. By 1402 it had a population of over 6m and the status of amajor power. In that year a shattering defeat at the hands of Timur the Lamereduced the Anatolian half of the Empire to chaos.

Recovery of the position and territory lost in this single battle ironically enoughnamed after the present Turkish capital, Ankara took the best efforts of the nextOttoman generation: it was not until the second half of the 15th century that theadvance began again. By 1500 the Empire had acquired new provinces in bothEurope and Asia, and its total population was approaching lOm; in the next half-century there was an explosion of military activity, with Hungary, the FertileCrescent and Egypt all succumbing to Turkish arms. At its late 16th-century maximum the Empire included most of North Africa (where 85m people were underOttoman rule), much of the Near East (12m) and nearly the whole of the Balkans

Turkey-in-Asia

o 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 a, C at o 10 0 In o 10 0~ tO N ~ 0 0

0 0 — — — — sOt

l975—~

134 Asia Area Ia

(7’Sm): the grand total of 28m was to be exceeded only at the end of the 19thcentury. when the rise in the rate of population increase characteristic of moderntimes added numbers faster than the loss of territory subtracted them. For thehistory of the Ottoman Empire after 1600 is one of continuous decline. At first thiswas a matter of internal shrinkage, an aspect of the general Mediterranean crisis ofthe 17th century. Then, one after another, important provinces started to escapecentral control notably the Maghreb by 1700. Egypt in 1800 and much of theBalkans in the course of the 19th century. Finally, in the Balkan wars of 1912 13,Turkey-in-Europe was reduced to its present meagre dimensions. The Empireentered the First World War, the catastrophe that was to end in its complete dismemberment, with a population of only 24m.

The second graph on page 137 shows the populations of the arca within thc boundaries of the present-day Turkish republic, i.e. the combined totals for our Turkey-in-Europe (Europe 14e) and Turkey-in-Asia.

Primary Sources

The only firm piece of information on the population of Anatolia in the pre-Moslem erais contained in an inscription of Pompey ~c in which lie claims that the area he conqueredcontained 12,183,000 people (recorded by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, book7para 97). Pompey conquered Transcaucasia, Syria and Palestine as well as Anatolia,which makes it unlikely Anatolia was responsible for more than 7 orB out of the 12 thereal population may well have been a million or so less than this because Ponipey isvery possibly re/erring to an even wider area including places like the Crimea. whichhe never conquered but which sent a formal submission and because victorious generals tend to round off their totals upwards.

The first statistically useful information to survive is in the Ott oman archives. Starting in the 15th century the Ottomans carried out intermittent ‘recensions’cnumerations of adult tnales. Two of these surveys have been worked up b, modertihistorians so far: the earlier is the recension of 1575 which yields a figure for totalpopulation of about Sn,: the other is the ret urn fbr 1831 which suggests a total population of about IOn,. Doubtless others nil! he published in time.

The first Turkish census of’modern tunes was taken in 1927: since 1937 there havebeen regular quinquennial censuses.

Bibliography

* Beloch post uloted a population of’ 13m for Roman Anatolia, a figure which impliesthat the area of modern Turkey-in-Asia contained 16m or “lore.’ this is just not on.* Russell suggests a more believable 6—Sm for the period AD 600—1500. The Ottomanrecension of 1575 is discussed in M. A. Cooks Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia(1972). the recension of’ 1831 in lssan’i’s contribution to Studies in the EconomicHistory of the Middle East (ed. M. A. Cook. 1970, p. 397). Cook has also contributedthe chapter on 20th-century Turkey in * Clarke and Fisher.

70

60

50

40

Populations of(1) the Ottoman Empireand(2) the area within the

boundaries of thepresent dayTurkish Republic

63?

ow

20

10

8

28 -

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OTrOMAN 1——~ -

ETMPiRE’i~i~_LI

EEEEHH:EE~Area within the boundaries of — — — — — — — g ,‘(12) -

present day Turkish Republic_ — 9 — — - —. — — -

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— Q 0000000000fl 0 Q 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 fl0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 Ii’ 0 a~ 0 i~ 0 ‘0 0to I— ~ 0 0- - -~ -

1975

13?

lb Syria and the Lebanon

lb—I Syria

O-20m km2(more than half desert)

O-I9m km1Ib—2 The Lebanon O-OIm km’

Syria and the Lebanon were among thefirst countries in the world to experiencethe agricultural revolution and its demographic effects. By 5000 nc their combined population was approaching the100,000 mark, a tenfold increase on themesolithic figure. By the final phase ofthe neolithic, c-3000 BC, it had increasedto a quarter of a million.

The next two millennia saw some ofthe bigger villages growing into towns,and names that have remained famousto this day Aleppo and Damascus,Tyre and Sidon appear in the historical record. The number of Syrians roseto 600,000 by 1000 BC: the Phoenicians,to give the Lebanese the name by whichthey were known in antiquity, thennumbered 200,000. The secular trendwas still upwards.

Unfortunately for them neither theSyrians nor the Phoenicians ever createdstable political units of any size, and thisfailure condemned them to subordinatestatus within the major Near-Easternempires. Between the 10th and 6thcenturies ac the Assyrians, neoBabylonians and Persians came, sawand conquered. The next in the sequencewas Alexander the Great, in 333 BC. Hehad no special plans for Syria but hislieutenant Seleucus had: alter Alexander’s death he carved himself out anempire which had Syria as its metropolitan province. His successors held onto it till they in their turn were forced toyield to Rome.

When Alexander the Great entered

the area the Syrians and Phoeniciansnumbered I-Sm. The Seleucids broughtin Greek settlers perhaps 100.000 ofthem and the combination of newblood, new ideas and administrativefervour set off an economic and demographic boom. The population climbedtowards the 2m mark and if it slippedback a bit in the chaotic years betweenthe collapse of the Seleucid monarchyand the incorporation of Syria and theLebanon in the Roman Empire, itsurged up again as soon as order hadbeen restored. For the first two centuriesof the imperial period the total for thearea was around 2-25m, split roughly4: I between Syria and Phoenicia.

This was the high point. The areashared in the general decline of lateantiquity and when it was conquered bythe Arabs in the 7th century numbershad fallen below 2m. Briefly, under theUmmayad caliphs, Damascus was thecapital of the Arab Empire and Syriathe recipient of revenues that flowed infrom as far away as Spain and Seistan.But now the secular trend was down.When the caliphs moved to Bagdad thearea’s population rapidly sank to a mereI-Sm. And this was to remain the normfor the next eight centuries. There weresluggish upward movements in the 13thand 16th centuries, but the Black Deathand the dead hand of Ottoman bureaucracy put paid to them. Not till theopening years of this century did thearea match the best figures of antiquity.

The current growth rate is high. In the

Syria and theLebanon

ll?-1 ,SY~U~

lb-2 ‘ TIIE LE~Ar’tor’~5?

~0000000~~in0~, .j,Olj,C C — C C 0 0 C 0 0 C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 C C 0

, ~o,-,o1o,~g, t— ~ a’ 0

— — — —jot

1975

138 Asia Area lb

case of the Lebanon it has been reducedby substantial emigration a total ofO’3m Lebancse (nearly all of themChristian) have left the country since thelate 19th century (most of them for

western Europe and the Americas) butthere are now 7m Syrians and 3mLebanese. and the projections for theyear 2000 suggest that by then there willbe at least Ibm people in the area.

The stony landscape of Palestine andJordan is unlikely to have supportedmore than a few thousand people inmesolithic times and, though the areats among the first in which neolithicagricultural techniques appear, thepopulation figures must have remainedvery low in the 30,000 to 100,000range for many millennia. After 1500BC village life took deeper root: theEgyptians brought law and order to thearea, and in the heyday of their empirethe land may have held a quarter of amillion people, two thirds of them inPalestine.

The collapse of the Egyptian Empirein 1200 BC left Palestine and Jordandefenceless: the Philistines seized thecoast, the children of Israel moved infrom the desert. According to scripturethe Israelites were numbered at something over 2m, Ten thousand would be abetter figure, but if they were few theywere tenacious: they multiplied andproselytized with such remarkablesuccess that by 800 BC they constitutedrather more than hail the total population of the area say 0’3m out of 0-Sm.

A population of this size, thoughsufficient to dominate Palestine andJordan, was hardly enough for an empire. For a century, under David andSolomon, Israel managed to live beyondits demographic and political means;then the kingdom divided, dwindledand, ultimately, fell. Up to 00,000Israelites were actually deported toMesopotamia by the conqueringAssyrian and Chaldaean kings: it isremarkable that 40,000 descendants of

O-12m km2

Ic—I Palestine W03m km2(of which the southern half is desert)

lc—2 Jordan O-09m km2(all but the western tenth desert)

this Diaspora retained sufficient sense oftheir Jewish identity to ask for repatriation when Cyrus of Persia finallybrought peace to the Fertile Crescent(539 Bc).

The population of Palestine andJordan seems to have stagnated forsome centuries after this. The Greeksdisplaced the Persians as rulers and onlyin the 2nd century ac, when the Greeksin their turn were losing control of thesituation, are there signs that the localpopulation was on the increase again.The new Jewish state created at thistime will have had a population at leastas big as its more famous Davidicpredecessor and by the time the Romansappeared on the scene Palestine andJordan probably held more people thanever before say 600.000.

This population, already a bit toolarge for comfort, was to go on increasing. By AD I it had reached 0’8m andcracks were appearing in the normallywell-disciplined Jewish social system.Way-out religious and political sectsbegan to multiply; ascetics, zealots andmessiahs preached to eager crowds. TheRoman reaction was vigorous, Anyonepreaching anything that could be construed as sedition was smacked downand when discontent finally flared intorevolt the Roman army brutallyrepressed it (~o 66 73). The bloodletting sufficed for this generation andthe next, but the same factors continuedat work and there was a second explosion in AD 132. This time theRomans decided to apply a ‘final solution’ to their Jewish problem: the

10 Palestine and Jordan


One isolated census return survives- fl-mn Roman tinier according to an inscription(C1L 1116687: Journal of Roman Studies 24. 1934. p. 187)1/ic ti/strict of Apamea had117000 inhabitants in AD 6. This is le.sw helpfid than it appears to he because, thoughIre know that the Ronians divided the area i,,to about 35 or 40 such districts, whichsuggests a total population of 4 or 5,,,. we also know that the “it)’ of Apatnea ‘las oneof’ the most important in Syria and Lebanon, it is likely, therefbre, that it had ,,,orecitizens thai, the average city and Syria less than 4w people. More directly usefill isPontpey ~ overall total for this part of’the world (seep. 136). which suggests that 3m or4w would cover Palest inc and Jordan as i.e/I as Syria and Lebanon. Russell takes thehigher of’ these t we figures, we have opted fbr the lower, * Beloch s 6w seems far toohigh.

The Arab centuries are an almost total blank, * Russell (p. 101. table 100 and note30) has assetnhled data on the population of’the cities of the Levant in the 12th centuryatid made these the basis of’ a population estimate fir the area: the figure he finallyproduces (2-7w for our areas lb and Ic together) is more readily acceptable than themethod, in fact, our figures fhr the period 1000—1500 are the same as his e ‘ceept thatour pre-Black Death peak is loiter hi’ ahnost a quarter. See atco * Poliak.

Between 1516 and 1918 our areas lb and Ic were ruled hi’ the Ottoman Turks, In thearchives at istanbul is the record of a census of’households in these areas take,, at theend of the 16th century. The provincial totatc hai’e heeti publtched hi’ 0. L, Barkan inStudies in the Economic History of the Middle East (ed, M. A. Cook. 1970, p. 171),’thefigurefor areas lb and Ic together is 284,000 households, which, eve,, using as higha multiplier asS, indicates a population total of omit.’ l’4i,i, This seen’s much too Ion’by more than 500 hi our view and one could need to see more returns published, anda fit/Icr stile of publication, hefi.ire accept ing that the demographic situation n’as everas had as this.

A poor substitute fhr prhnary clocutnents are the cotitetnporar)’ Westerti esti,,iatesthe earliest fl-ott; the late 18th century — which hate been collected by Charles issawi(The Economic History of the Middle East. l960,see p. 209): the,’ are helpfId only inthe sense that the)’ establish orders of n,agnitude. For the 20th century we have thereasonably accurate esthnates produced hr the French, and ui the case of Syria tuecensuses take,, in 1960 and 1970.

The Lebanon has ‘lever had a census as all: attentpts to hold otie in 1921, 1932 and1941 all foundered anud interco,nmunal tetisions anti the government ‘Ion’ activelydoesn’t “ant to know at,;’ more: true figures could (list urh the necessary fiction that thepopulation splits e.vactly into Moslem and Christiati halves, The real split is prohahij’more like 60 : 40.

141

legions ground their way forward killingeveryone in their path. Tacitus has aphrase for his countrymen when onthis sort of campaign: ‘uhi .solitudinen,faciunt. pacem appellant’ — ‘they make awilderness and call it peace’. By the timethe war ended in AD 135 Palestine was agraveyard: almost the entire Jewishpopulation had fled or died.

To replace the Jews, the emperorHadrian brought in new settlers. By AD

200 there had been a partial recovery toa total of perhaps 05m for Palestine andJordan together. And round this pointthe population of the area was tofluctuate for the next 16 centuries. Peaksof up to 600,000 may have been reachedat particularly busy periods under thecaliphs in the 8th century and under thecrusaders in the 12th century andtroughs of 400,000 during the periods ofgeneral demographic retreat theByzantine nadir of the early 7th century,the half century after the Black Deathand the Ottoman demographic low ofc’.1700. But essentially Palestine andJordan slumbered on untouched by theinnovations that were transforming therest of the world.

During the 19th century the first signsof change became visible: the population slowly increased to 0’75m. In themid 20th century both the politics andthe population of the area suddenly exploded. Literally millions of peoplepoured in or were pushed out: the disadvantages of having Jewish, Christianand Moslem holy places in one citybecame startlingly apparent.

Demographically as politically the

IsraelIsraeli-occupied PalestineTotal PalestineJordan

Total Area Ic 117,000 km’

dominating fact in the modern historyof the region has been the recolonizationof Palestine by the Jews. Numbering lessthan 5.000 through the Middle Ages, thelocal Jewish community began to growsignificantly in the 19th century, increasing from 10,000 at its beginning to70,000 at its end. The census of 1922recorded 84,000 Jews, that of 1931175,000, while the new-founded state ofIsrael had a Jewish population of 08mat its birth in 1948. Today the figureis 3m. Immigration has been thepredominant factor in this growth, withsome 700,000 immigrants arriving inthe first five years of Israel’s existence.About a third of the post-1948 arrivalshave come from Eastern Europe andabout a fifth from North Africa. Thiscontrasts with the pre-1948 pattern oforigins which was predominantly WesternEuropean and North American.

Mirroring the rise of Israel has beenthe relative decline of the Arab community in Palestine. This is not at all thesame thing as the Palestinian Arab community, which has multiplied vigorouslyduring its exile. It was l’25m strong in1948 and is reckoned at 36m today. Ofthe present total 0’4m live in Israel andII m in the rest of Palestine — at the timeof writing, under Israeli occupation.Another Im are in Jordan, where theyactually form a majority of thecountry’s present-day population ofl-75m. The remainder live in theLebanon (0’4m), Syria (0’2m) or elsewhere in the Arab world (05m).

The present situation in area Ic canbe tabulated as follows:

Jews Arabs Total30 04 34

II II30 I’S 45

175 175

30 325 625

Palestine andJordan ic-i PALEStIr4E

iä-2 )OaDAN

21,000 km26,000 km2

27,000 km290,000 km2

10?

.___..‘a~ai ,a~0 0 ,.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 O 000000000 0~’ 0 tOo ii, a too too

co t- 0 0CC) — “~ — — ~

i975

142 Asia Area Ic


The Avnarna Letters show that Late Bronze Age Palestine and Jordan had a tinypopulation: W. F. A/brig/it puts hot/i together at 200,000 (Cambridge AncientHistory, 3rd cdii, Vol. 2, Part 2(1975): see a/so C. C. McCann in Journal of BiblicalLiterature 66 (1947fl. B)’ the early Iron Age one could believe that i/ic combined totalhad doubled, but given this hackgroutid the early Jewish statistics in the Bible603.000 adult males at the time oft/ic exodus (Numbers I, 46): l’2m adult males underDavid — have to be dismissed as fabulous or auraculous. On the other hand thefigureforthose returning from the exile in Babylonia (Nehemiah 7, 66) is perfectly credible:42.360 people (ignoring a suspicious-looking rounding-up to 50.000) could well have beeninvolved in the sort of mass deportations practised by the Assyrians and Babylonians.Unfortunately this isn ‘t really any help in determining the total population of the area.Nor is Josephus, who garbles all his figures.

Palestine is lumped in with Syria by both * Beloch and * Russell. Neither has anything vemi’ niuclt to go on, but fOr what there is see p. 140. The 16th-century Ottomandata are also dealt with there because the provincial divisions used b, the Turks make itimpossible to give separate figures for our Areas lb and Ic. For a good survey of theentire Islamic period see Poliak.

Trustworthy figures begin with the British-administered censuses of Palestine of1922 and 1931. and a series of estimates for Jordan of the same vintage. Since independence things have improved further: the Israeli authorities held censuses in 1948 and196/; Jordan carried out a preliminary enumeration in 1952 and took a proper censusiii 1961. The Jordanian counts covered the .‘est hank which has since been occupied andrecounted hr Israel (1967).

id Arabia 2-95m km’

The Arabian peninsula is currently divided between eight sovereign states which canbe grouped as follows:

Id-I The Gulf coast: 0-lOm km2Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar and the United Arab &nirates

ld-2 The interior: 2-15m km’Saudi Arabia

Id-3 The southern corner, the Yemen: O-48m km2The Yemen Arab Republic’ atid the People c Democratic Republic of’ Yemen (or,to put it ‘flare comprehensibly. North Yemen and South Yemen)

Id-4 The eastern corner: O-21m km2Otnati

Arabia

THEGULFCOAST

Until recently the geography of these subdivisions entirely determined how theirinhabitants lived: on the Gulf coast and in Oman the population was traditionallyseafaring; in the vast interior — a mixture of desert, steppe and oases — there was a

o o -, 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

~~

— — — — .02

14 (4 1975~~l

144 Asia Area Id

thin scattering of the pastoral bedouin with no more than the occasional settlement.and in the Yemen, the only part of the peninsula with enough rainfall for peasantagriculture, there was the relatively high and even density of population that goeswith this way of Ilk. Today geology is as important as geography and the rates ofgrowth are strongly influenced by the enormous oil revenues which are flowing, veryunevenly, into the peninsula.

Id-I The Gulf Coast

The Persian Gulf is the setting for theworld’s oldest authenticated trade route.Ships plying between Iraq and Pakistanwere calling at Bahrein as early as 2000BC and the scattered fishing communities will have made the transition froma mesolithic culture to one with apredominantly commercial colouring bythis date. In 2000 BC one can think interms of 25,000 people, in classical timesof 50.000 and by AD 600 of 100,000. In1900 the population was still only200,000. Since then the discovery andexploitation of the region’s colossal oilreserves has caused dramatic changes inevery aspect of Gulf life. Between 1950and 1975 the population tripled; it canbe expected to rise by at least a furtherl00°~ between now and the end of thecentury.

Id-2 The Interior

Within the Arabian peninsula lies atruly uninhabitable area, the 08m km2sand sea known as the Rub iii Khali orEmpty Quarter’. Through the rest of

the interior human existence has alwaysbeen just possible. At first the modes ofsupport were limited to simple food-gathering at the oases and hunting ofthe animals that lived in the desertscrub; ultimately these life styles werereplaced by a more deliberate harvestingof the oases and, in the semi-desert, asystem of pastoralism based on thecamel. As far as the oases are concernedone can equate the changeover with the

appearance of neolithic techniques elsewhere in the Near East around 5000 BC.

The evolution of the typical pastoralismof the bedouin appears to have takenplace later, in the 2nd millennium BC.

Most of the growth in population willhave coincided with these developments.with numbers rising from 10.000 in 5000BC to aIm in 2000 BC, 0-Sm in 1000 BC

and I m in AD I. In Mohammed’s time thefigure soared past the 2m mark, puttingreal pressure on resources. The result wasthe outpouring of bedouin armies whichcreated the Arab empire of medievaltimes and the Islamic world of today.

Pressure never built up to the sameextent again, the population remainingin the 2m 2Sm band for the rest of themedieval and early modern periods.Even now the total of Saudis is no morethan 4m. However, oil riches haveattracted in I-Sm foreigners (mostlyYemeni labourers) so the current totalstands at 5-Sm. At the most 0-Sm ofthese could still be called nomads, asagainst the fifty-fifty split betweenbedouin and oasis-dweller that was thenorm in the past.

id-S The Yemen

The comparatively friendly climate ofthe Yemen explains why the classicalgeographers referred to it as ArabiaFelix (Arabia the Fortunate) in contrastto the rest of the peninsula (ArabiaDeserta): it enables this relatively smallarea little more than l0”~ of thewhole to support half Arabia’s

3?

10

11?

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 C 0 0 0 0OOO0O000fl~b~,.U~~ o lo~ 0~”~

— —~ — — .02

m ~ 1975—i

i.28?

146 Asia Areas id—I to id—4

population. This ratio has probablybeen constant since the days ol theQueen of Sheba (Sheba being one of theYemeni kingdoms during the last millennium BC), or lot that matter since theintroduction of agriculture. This meansthat if we think of a Yemeni populationof something like lm in classical times,something over 2m in Mohammed’s dayand something like 3m in 1900 we are inthe right order of magnitude.

Today the population is 7m. slightlyless than 5O”~ of the peninsular total.This drop in the ratio is due to highemigration. Yemen has been far fromFelix in the matter of oil, having found

none at all, and many of its youngmen currently more than Im are offworking in Saudi Arabia.

id-4 Oman

Oman’s population has probably alwaysbeen around its current 5”,, of theArabian total. However! unless thecountry turns out to have oil reserves onthe same scale as the other states of theGulf it is likely that this percentage willslowly fall and that the million markwill only just be reached by the end ofthe century.

10 IraqThe north-west of Iraq is hill countrywith sufficient rainfall to supportagriculture: the rest of the country isarid except where directly watered bythe Tigris and Euphrates. The northwest, modern Kurdistan, is part of thezone within which agriculture was firstpractised, while the south, ancientSumeria, is the site of an equally important social advance it was here that villages first grew into towns. Both theserevolutions’ had important effects on

Iraq’s population. The first, theneolithic revolution, involved anincrease from something under 10,000to something over 100,000, though, asthe change was spread over the whole ofthe period from the 7th to the 5th millennia BC it is better described asevolutionary than revolutionary. Thesecond, the urban revolution, was comparatively abrupt. During the middlecenturies of the 3rd millennium thepopulation of Sumeria surged up to thehalf-million mark, its villages becametowns and the towns became thepolitical powers of the area.

The Sumerians were historically themost important element in ancientIraqi society but they were never amajority, equally important were the hillfarmers of Kurdistan and the nomadsof the desert. Indeed demographicallyKurdistan was much more stable thanSumeria. From the start the irrigatingagriculture of the south was menaced byan insidious enemy, salt. The water tableof south Iraq is saline and so near thesurface that it only takes a bit ofinjudicious over-irrigation to bring it upto root level. When this happens thecrops die and the fields become barren.In the end the area has to be abandonedto the nomads.

This process explains the collapse of

O-44m km1(ahout one fifth productive)

Sumerian society at the end of the 3rdmillennium Bc: the contemporary influxof Amorite bedouin, which some haveseen as a cause, turns out to be a consequence. It was not a permanentchange: in time the fields recovered andthe cycle could begin again. This happened at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC and again at its end. We canreasonably postulate population rises tomaxima of Im and I’25m in these twoinstances, with falls to 0’75m and Imbetween and after.

In the final millennium BC there wasan even more dramatic boom and bust.The political expression of the boomwas the Assyrian Empire. the creationof the city state of Assur at the northernmost point of the irrigating area.The number of Assyrians must havebeen tiny a few tens of thousands atmost but as in the case of Rome a fewwere enough to conquer the world asthey knew it. By the 7th century BC

Assyrian governors were installedthroughout the Near East from Egypt toIran: a steady stream of captives andadventurers flowed into the new capitalof Nineveh, bringing the total population of Iraq to an all-time high of 2m.The end came with dramatic suddcnness. All the enemies of the much-hated empire ganged up together, razedNineveh to the ground (612 ac) andturned the territory of Assur into anempty land.

Many centuries were to pass beforeIraq regained the levels of prosperityand population achieved under Assyrianrule. Iraq became an adjunct of Iran anda province of the successive Iranianempires Achaemenid, Parthian andSassanid. Its population fluctuated between Im and l’25m. Then in the 7thcentury AD the Arabs conquered Iraq


There are no prit tsar)’ data for the period hefbre this century. For detailed cci imat Cs ofthe peninsul&s population during the First World War see Vol. loft/se Handbook ofArabia produced by tile (British) Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division (London19)6: quoted hereafter as A WS). For the post-Second World War period see * Clarkeand Fisher. The position since the Secotid World War may he sun stnari:ed as follows:

The Gulf States. The Emirate of Bahrein held the first census ever takets in thepeninsula in 1941 (and has held censuses since in 1950. 1959, 1965 and 1971). Kuwaitfbi/owed in 1957 (and has held repeat censuses ii’ /961, 1965 and 1970), the UnitedArab Emirates in 1968 and Qatar in 1970. The figures suggest that the estimates madeduring the first half of the 20th century were sound.fbr the earliest, the A WSfigure of0’2Sns, neectc reducing by only about 10’,, to snake it consistent with what is knownnow.

Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities have held tao censuses, the first in 1962 3, thesecond in 1974. The figure obtained its the first was .5 3m, about half the officialestimate. Vie government tried to suppress this result but it leaked out all the same. Inthe case of the second census it did better and no figures at all have been pubhshed.Official figures are still based on projections ons the pre-census estimates: the currentrunner is 8’75,,s.

The Yemen. British estinsates for South Yemen in the 1950s here probably reasonab4’ accurate, being based on a tneasitre of administrative control, though the firstcensus “as taken only after independence, in 1973. Vie first census in North Yemen wastaken in early 1975.

Oman. No census or enumeration has ever been carried out here. The quotedestimates have slowly risen from the 0’Sn, suggested by A WS to the current officialfigure of 0’75m

149

and in the 8th century the Abbasidcaliphs made it the centre of the ArabEmpire. From their new city of Bagdadthey presided over an empire of 30mand a metropolitan province thatreached a 9th-century peak of about2-Sm. It was Islam’s and Iraq’sgolden age.

In the 10th, 11th and 12th centuriesthis prosperity gradually ebbed awayagain. The Abbasid caliphs wererespected throughout the Middle Eastbut outside Iraq they were not obeyed:once again mounting salinizationreduced the country’s agriculturalproductivity. By the time the paganarmies of the Mongol Khan Hulagureached Bagdad iraqi society was in fulldecline. Hulagu’s sack of the capital in

1258 set the seal on the nationalhumiliation. There was a rapid drop ofpopulation to the million mark asnomadism again became the dominantway of life, What had once been thewonder of the Islamic world became abackward and impoverished districtruled by Ottoman pashas.

By contrast the 20th century has seenthe population increasing at a rate thatis exceptional even for the Middle East,The upturn began about 1850, with the2m level being reached shortly beforethe end of the 19th century and the Smmark in the late 1940s. The currentpopulation is I Im. As the totals haverisen, the percentage of nomads hasfallen from 40°c in 1850 to less than5°~ in 1950 and a mere 2°~ today.


The on/i bases for Cs? hnates oft/ic population ofancient Iraq are provided by studies ofurban and rural detisities. For the si:es of ancient Mesopotamian cities see theCambridge Ancient History, 3rd edt,, Vol. 1. Par? 1(1970), p. 332; II. Frankf’ort.Kingship and the Gods (1965) and David Oates Studies in the Ancient History ofNorth Iraq (1968). For rural densities see Braid.”ood and Reed (Cold Spring HarbourSymposium on Quantitative Biology XXII (1957), p. 19)), is’ho have proposed afigure of OSm fOr Sumeria in 2500 BC on the basis of a rural density estimate of 15 perkm’.’ this is compatible with a population fOr Iraq as a whole of 0 75n,.

No one apart from • Ru~vell appears to have attempted any reasoned estimatesbet n’ecn this figure fOr 2500 B C a,,d one of mi for AD 1800 put forward by • Bonnè.Absurdfigures like 2otii appear it’ accounts of the Bagdad caliphate but these belong inthe ieah,, of the Arabiati Nights. Unfortunate/v they see,,, to hai’e influenced thenornially sober Russell. who allows Iraq 9,;, and apparently believes that the populatiotihad beet, as high as 15,;i under the Sassanids. Luckili’ his tnethod calculation is quiteimplausible. There is. in/Oct. no reason for believing that n,edieval Iraq has capable ofsupport big ,,,ore that, Sm people or that the number of people who actually lived thereever exceeded half this figure.

The results of a Turkish count of households in the Bagdad and Basra provinces(equivalent to the southern half of Iraq) at the end of the 16th century have beenpublished by 0. L. Barkan in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East (ed.M. A. Cook. 1970, p. 168). The figure of 88 000 households cat, be equated with anoverall Iraqi total of’just under the n,illioti tnark ((‘multiplied by 5 (per household) and2 f_for the other half of Iraq). The proportion of nomads was a third.

For the recent period M. S. h’asan gives a series of estimates starting in 1867

SAUDI ARABIA

iiS S 500000000000000000000 0 0 0 0 0 0

0) 0• CO ~ 0 ~ too— — —

~ l975—~

ISO Asia Area le

70(Bulletin of Oxford University Institute of Statistics, 20. 1958). These are based on apartial Ottoman census of 1890. British official estimates of 1866 7. 1900—1908 and1919, and a partial enwneration in 1934. Proper censuses were taken in 1947, 1957 and1965. The whole of this period is summarized by 8. 1. Lawless in and Fisher.

if IranThere are village sites in western Iranthat archaeologists have claimed areamong the oldest agricultural settlements in the world, and though viewson when and where the neolithic revolution began are currently in a state of fluxthere can be no doubt that agriculture inIran is very old indeed. On the otherhand the pattern of rainfall restricts thepractice of agriculture to a mere l0~, ofthe land surface. Another 20°c can beused for grazing: most of the rest isdesert and waste of the most depressingsort. The result is that the overall density of population has always been lowand the overall totals far from imposing.The likely mesolithic population is ofthe order of 30.000; the likely population in the early neolithic period (the 5thmillennium BC) not more than 05m andthe comparable figure for the LateBronze Age (around 1000 Bc) no morethan 2m.

By this time Iran was inhabited byhorse-riding pastoralists as well asagriculturalists. The pastoralists, whodominated the central plateau, were ofthe same ‘Iranian’ stock as the present-day Persians: the peasantry in themountain folds that form the westernborder of the plateau were in the linguistic sense Transcaucasians. i.e. similarto the Georgians of the CaucasusMountains. During the 8th and 7th centuries ac these Transeaucasian peoplesof Iran suflered severely from thewarfare that raged between the Iraniansof the plateau and the Assyrians of

I-65m km2

north Iraq: when the war ended withthe triumph of the Iranians, theTranscaucasians were already slippingtowards extinction. The Iranians theMedes and Persians of the Biblebecame the masters of an empire thatstretched from Greece to India.

As tribute flowed in to the heart ofthe new empire the population of Iranrose from around 25m to 4m. A newequilibrium between the settled andnomadic ways of life was established bythe development of the qanat system ofunderground water-courses for irrigation, and in both style and numbers thePersians now achieved a stable state.Their society was to continue almostunchanged through the conquest ofAlexander the Great, the rule of his successors and the restoration of nativepower by the Arascid kings of Parthia.Under the Sassanid Dynasty (AD 226—649) this traditional Iranian culturereached its apogee: the populationpeaked to Sm. It was already beginningto slip from this high level when, in the7th century. the armies of the Arabiancaliph mounted the plateau and forciblyconverted its inhabitants to Islam.

After the initial upheaval was over,Islamic Persia reached a level of prosperity that certainly equalled andpossibly surpassed the Sassanid best. Infact, in a demographic as opposed to apolitical sense, it was not the arrival ofthe Arab that is the significant event inmedieval Persian history but the arrivalof the Turk. For the Turkish invasions

Iran

60

1~,50 . IRANIAN PLATEAU

IRAQ

SALTDFSERT

a—

IIIII

¶1iiii

10

61412 [8 8 ~ 8 ° ° ° 8 8 8 8 8 ° ° ° °to Q to a b’~ 0 to 0 tO 0

0 t’- ~ a’ a00 — — — ‘.1

l975—~

152 Asia Area 1~f’

a series of migratory movements thatcontinued over the whole period between AD 1000 and 1500 added a newcomponent to the population of thecountry. Moreover, as each Turkishtribe moved into the area the balanceswung from agriculture to pastoralism.The effect was usually immediately visible in the form of a massacre of Iranianpeasants by nomad Turks.

The first Turkish invasion, the migration to which the Seljuks have giventheir name, was not too destructive, formost of the Turks passed on to Turkey;the bad one came in 1220 when thearmies of Genghis Khan appeared fromthe north-east. For the next forty yearsIran and Iraq were subjected to merciless slaughter and a 250,, drop inpopulation is a minimum estimate.Moreover, the 14th and 15th centuriescannot have seen any significantrecovery for a cluster of reasons therenewed dominance of pastoralism. thearrival of the Black Death and the finaloutburst of terror during the reign ofthe last of the nomad conquerors,Tamburlaine. By 1500 Im of the 4mpeople living in Iran were Turkish-speaking nomads. The newcomers

dominated the provinces of Azerbaijanand Khorasan and far outnumbered theonly other important minority in thecountry, the OSm Arabs who lived inthe provinces bordering Iraq.

The 15th century was probably thehigh point of the pastoral way of life inIran. Gradually during the next threecenturies the greater potential of settledagriculture reasserted itself and as thetotal population rose towards 6m thepercentage of nomads dropped towards200g. By 1900 there were lOm people inIran, a far higher figure than had everbeen attained before: at the most only2m of these were nomads.

Since then the process has acceleratedas the population explosion has hit Iranwith full force and the urban andagricultural populations have soared.There are currently about 34m Persians,of whom 27m are Persian-speaking, 4mTurkish and 2m Arabic. Only about0 Sm, mostly Turks, continue to practisepastoralism: by the end of the century,when, if anything approaching the current rate of increase is maintained, Iranwill have a population of about 50m. itseems most unlikely that any of themwill be nomads.


For the prehistoric period there isa series of estimates ofpopulation density per km2 ofproductive land in an article by Frank Hole and K. V. Flannery in Proceedings of thePrehist. Soc. (1967). Taking the productive area as 1000 of tile whole, their figuresimply overall population estimates much the same as ours. For a guess at the ,nediei’alpopulation, again comparable ,.‘ith ours, see * Russell, p. 89.

The population since 1900 is the subject of an excellent article by Julian Bharier InPopulation Studies 22 (2) 1968. His figures and the frw estimates available for the19th century are summarized in B. D. Clark ~s contribution to Clarke and Fisher.The 20th-century figures are based on registration (which got off to a shaky start in1928), a partial enutneration covering the twenty-five most important population nuclet(carried out in 1939—41) and tn’o post-war censuses (1956, 1966).

Afghanistan

r 9

KabuI~ —

III

II00—000000000000000000000 fl 0 0 00 0 0U~ 010010 lg~

C) 0 —

1975~1

Asia Area Ig (text overleaf)

ig AfghanistanAlthough today remote from the currents of world affairs Afghanistan wassufficiently close to the heartland ofthe Old World where agriculture wasinvented to get off to a good start demographically. By 5000 BC the 15.000 or sopre-agricultural inhabitants of the areahad been replaced by five times as manyfarmers: by 1000 nc some Im peoplewere occupied in tilling the plains on thenorthern border of the country and thefertile valleys hidden within the mountains of the central massif.

This population had risen to around2-Sm in the 2nd century AD when theKushan kings made it the centre ofa half-Iranian, half-Indian empire ofthe type that is characteristic ofAfghanistan’s brief moments of glory. Itis probable that the population was nolarger when such a moment came againin the years immediately before andafter AD 1000. This time the empire wasMoslem (the Kushans had beenBuddhists) and its prosperity wasbased under the excuse of religion onthe plunder of north India. A deservedretribution came in the form of thepagan Genghiz Khan in the early 13th

0-65 km2 (about 12”,, productive)

century: the cities built from the spoilsof India were sacked so thoroughly thatthe population of the country fell below2m for the next century and a half.

Afghanistan now began to slip out ofthe mainstream of history. Periods as aborder province of such empires asTimur’s or the Moghuls’ alternated withperiods of chaotic independence. In the19th century British and Russians cameto see that their interests were bestserved by leaving Afghanistan alone: inthis relatively tranquil period numberswent up significantly for the first time incenturies: from 3m in 1800 to Sm in1900.

Growth in the 20th century has beenfaster, to about 9m in 1950 and to 16min 1975. Afghans (Pathans) constituteabout 60°c of the population, Tajiksabout 30°~, The remaining I0’~ is accounted for by a series of small tribalgroups of which the Uzbek Turks withabout 500 are the most important. In1960, between a quarter and a fifth ofthe population was still nomadic,though as a way of life pastoralism, inAfghanistan as everywhere else, isclearly in decline

ASIA AREA 2

2a CaucasiaCaucasia is divided in two by theCaucasus Mountains, with Ciscaucasialying north of the divide andTranscaucasia to the south. Historically. Ciscaucasia has been part ofthe Russian steppe while Transcaucasiahas belonged to the Near Eastern community. or. to put it another way.Ciscaucasian population densities havebeen pastoral and Transcaucasian densities (except in the east) agricultural.So, since the beginning of the neolithicperiod which in this area can be datedback to the 7th millennium ac theTranscaucasians have significantly outnumbered the Ciscaucasians. By theBronze Age, when there will have beenat most 100,000 people in Caucasiaas a whole, three out of every fourCaucasians lived south of the mountainsand this same proportionate divisioncan be assumed for the Iron Age (totalpopulation 0-25m) and the classicalperiod (0’35m).

None of the classical empires established direct control of Caucasia butTranscaucasia was divided into spheresof influence: the Romans became theprotectors of the western two thirdsthe alpine redoubt of the Georgianpeople; the Persians of the eastern third.This dividing line hardened when theGeorgians accepted Christianity fromRome and the East Transcaucasians followed the Persians in converting toIslam.

In the 12th century the kings ofGeorgia managed to buck the generally

Russia-in-Asia16-Sm km2

0-47 m km2

pro-Islamic trend of the era and conquer most of the area south of thewatershed. About half the Im inhabitants of contemporary Caucasia wereGeorgians. which goes some way to explaining their dominance: the remainderdivided equally into Ciscaucasians andEastern Transcaucasians. Both thesepopulations, originally Iranian, werebecoming progressively more Turkish incharacter as each century brought afresh wave of Central Asian Turksthrough the area,

The armies of Islam finally provedtoo strong for the Georgians. The powerof the kingdom was broken by Timurthe Lame at the end of the 14th century.and by the 16th century Transcaucasiahad been divided between Ottomansand Persians along a line very similar to(he division of the classical period.Several centuries of cultural and demographic stagnation followed with theCaucasian population growing onlyslowly from I-Sm in 1600 to 2m in1800.

At the beginning of the 19th centuryCaucasia was conquered by theRussians. The result was a sharp upswing in the population graph, partlybecause of an increase in law and order,partly because of Russian immigrationand partly because of the complex offactors that constitute the opening phaseof the cycle of modernization. By 1900there were 3-Sm people in Ciscaucasia(as against 0’75m in 1800) and 4mpeople in Transcaucasia (as against


There are no prin,an’ sources fbi- AJkhanistan at least-, though sonic counts of’ sortshare bee,, made in recent years. there has never bee,, a proper census. The governmentestimates issued annual/v situ-c 1920 are held to he much too high hr Donald N.Wilbur (in ‘Afkhanistan’. Human Relations Area Files. 1962). i,’ho suggests 9nz forc.1960 (cf the official estimate of’ 13-3,;, for 1959). Wilbur possibly goes too low butseen’s to he the only ,i’riter to have seriously considered the question.

Perhaps the best approach is to compare Afkhanistan with Iran. Afghanistctn hasabout half’ the c’ultivahle area of’ Iran,’ if’ its population is it, proportion it ;i’ould havebeen about llmni 1960 half “‘al’ between the official figure and Wilbur’s. This wouldfit i,’ith a World Batik estitnate of’ 14-6,;, in 197!. For earlier periods a populationroughly half’ that of’ Iran scents a reasotiable hypothesis in the absence of’ an)’ actualevidence.

156 157

l25m). Apart from the interruptionsimposed by the two world wars bothpopulations have continued to growrapidly since. There are now 13-7SmTranscaucasians and II m Ciscaucasians.

The Transcaucasians are currentlydivided between three republics: theGeorgian SSR pop. 5m (3m of themGeorgians); the Armenian SSR pop.3m (almost all Armenians); and SovietAzerbaijan pop. 5’75m ~ Turk).Azerbaijan has the highest growthrate: its population was smaller thanGeorgia’s as recently as 1965. Move-


ments in and out of Transcaucasiasince the Russian conquest have beenrelatively small-scale. About 0-2m Turksleft during the pacification programme;about 0’2m Armenians arrived fromTurkey before and during the FirstWorld War; Russians have moved in inmoderate numbers and now constituteabout l0”~ of the population. This is avery dilferent picture from Ciscaucasia,where the indigenous peoples have beenswamped by a massive influx ofRussians. Russians constitute 70’,, ofthe total population and the area iscounted as part of the Russian 55 R.

The traditionalfigure of5,;, for medieval Georgia is absurd. in fact there are no usableprimary data prior to the year 1800. Starting in the ear/i 19th century the Russiansproduced believable estimates but as they did,, ‘t establish ad,ninistratii’e control off/ictnore remote areas till the late 1860s these hate to be taken wit/i a pine/i of salt. Theonly impeccable figures derive from the Soviet censuses, of which the first li-as held in1926 (see Europe Area 7).

When the first Russians crossed theUrals at the end of the 16th century theyentered a land that was both Immenseand empty. Considering the distancesinvolved, the speed with which theyestablished control over the wholearea the feat was near enough complete by 1700— was amazing: in thatyear the Russian flag was flying on theSea of Okhotsk and 100,000 Russianfur-trappers and traders had been addedto the 200,000 native hunters andfishers. Peasants, prisoners and politicalexiles followed in a steady trickle, By1800 the total population was Im andby 1850 2-Sm.

Though only a thin ribbon of Siberiais arabIc the country is so vast that theagricultural potential is considerable. Bythe mid 19th century the teeming peasantry of European Russia had becomeaware of the opportunities that existedin the east and one of the great migrations of history was under way. Thenumber of new colonists arriving eachyear passed the 25,000 mark in 1870,reached 50,000 in 1890 and 100,000 in1896, the year the first major section ofthe Trans-Siberian railway was openedto traffic. For the years 1901 14 the annual average was over 200,000. At theoutbreak of the First World War the

35

30

Caucasia

2b Siberia lZm km2

25

20

5

4

3

2

1aiL.

0 0 5 0 0to to0tootoo.~o~ § 0 55500000000000” 5 N ~ o

00 — — — —

158 Asia Area 2a

total population had reached 14m andthe cumulative total of immigrants wasnearing 7m.

The pre-First World War rate ofgrowth a doubling of the populationin twelve years was not one that couldbe sustained. Though the Soviets accorded the development of Siberia thehighest priority the growth rate in the

Russian Turkestan is currently dividedbetween the Kazakh, IJzbek. Kirghiz.Turkrnen and Tadzhik peoples. eachwith their own republic (S S R). All butthe Tadzhiks in the mountainous southeast corner of the country are Turks, buthistorically the Turks are relative latccorners to the scene. The earliest inhabitants we know of were the Scyths andthey were Iranians like the Tadzhiks.

The Scyths were the people whodeveloped the horse-riding style ofanimal husbandry which was to provethe first practical way of exploiting theextensive but thin pastures of theCentral Asian steppe. Scattered throughthe area there are, it is true, tracts ofland suitable for settled agricultureand these have been farmed since theneolithic era. But Turkestan is a worldwhere, once established, the nornadicway of life dominated the picture; the

160

to 40°c and in the third quarter it hasdropped to 25°,. The gains are still veryhigh in absolute terms and probably afigure of about 6 or 7rn extra people ageneration is as many as can be reasonably provided for in this harsh environment. On this projection the population of Siberia will be around 40rn at theend of the century.

men of the steppe outnumbered thepeasants and town-dwellers until well onin the 19th century. It is the oppositesituation to that of Iran, where thenomads were always outnumbered bythe peasantry. This is the basis for theage-old division of the Iranian-speakingworld into Iran, the land of agriculture,and Turan. the land of pastoralisrn.

Russian Turkestan is a very largecountry, and even in the days before theevolution of an efficient pastoral stylethe population will have been considerable. In 1300 ac we can think in termsof 100.000 people on the steppe andanother 100.000 scattered through theoases and in the areas where neolithicagriculture was possible. The appearance of the Scyths, their horses and theirlocks is dated to the first half of the lastmillennium ac; it is to be associatedwith an increase in numbers, say from

Siberia

second quarter of the century fell back

Bibliography

Population figures frr the period from 1622 to 1921 are set out on p. 32 of Donald W.Treadgoid. The Great Siberian Migration (1957). The earl icr figures are the result ofcalculations perfbrined hi P. A. Slovtsor in the late 19th century: recently 8. 0.Dolgikh (quoted in George Vernadsky A History of Russia, Vol. 5; The Tsardom ofMoscow. PP. 672—3 (1969)). has reworked tile data and ~me up n’uh slightlt’ loiterfigures.

2c Russian Turkestan 4m km’

Trans-SiberianRailway

I

RUSSIANTURKESTAN

0 0 0 0 0 0 2 ° 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 ., Out Out 010010000

CO t’ ~ O~ 0

— — —I —

4ei,, d -.,,.

half a million to a million. Between 500BC and AD 500 the population doubledagain to reach 2m. About half a millionof these were agriculturalists, most ofthem living in the areas near Iran andgetting incorporated in the variousIranian empires from time to time.

In the period AD 500—1600 thepopulation of Turan doubled again. Italso changed its character though notits nomadic economy as Turkish tribesflooded in from the north-east anddrove out the Iranians. The arrival ofthe Turks, and more particularly theirconversion to Islam, gave the country anew cultural unity.


This was not to last long. In the late19th century the area was conquered bythe Russians and became part of theEmpire of the Tzars. Since then administrators and settlers have arrived in suchnumbers that today Turan containssome Sm ethnic Russians. The conquestalso released a demographic explosionamong the Turks and Tadzhiks: theirnumbers have risen from lOm in 1900 to28m now. In fact the native peoples ofTurkestan have the highest rates ofincrease of any of the USSR’s minorities: largely because of their efforts thepopulation of the area is currentlyincreasing by nearly Im a year.

GO?

A. K. Validi (quoted by * Russell. p. 87) gives sonic estimates for the densities of thesteppe peoples it, the 1st century B C and the lot/i cetitury AD, hut there is nothing at allsubstantial to go oil before the Russian conquest iti the 19th century. In fact even riflerthe area was brought under Russia?? control thefigures ren,aineda hit uncertaui.fbr theKhanares of Khiva and Bukhara returned onh rounded e.cthnates in the census of 1897.There are no really reliable figures before the Soviet census of’ 1926,

0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Asia Area 2c

35ASIA AREA S

Sometime in the third quarter of the lastmillennium He the Mongolians learnedto ride; their entire culture has beencentred on the horse ever since. Thechangeover from a footbound pastoralsociety, perhaps 30,000 strong in 500BC, to one of horse-riding clans, numbering not less than 200.000 by 250 BC,

created the unchanging Mongolia of thehistorical period: the demographic basewas of the same order of magnitudeabout 800,000 when in the 13th century Genghis Khan set out fromMongolia to conquer the world, and itwas still in the same band in fact


MongoliaF57m 1cm’

slightly lower, about 600,000 when theChinese established control over thecountry in the 18th century. Followingthe recovery of independence in 1911the population grew towards its historical upper limit again, reaching 0-75m inabout 1940.

In the last two decades the firsttremors of the demographic revolutionhave reached Mongolia; there has beena sharp rise in the rate of increase, whichhas now reached the Asian average. Itlooks as though the population, currently l’5m, will reach 3m by the end ofthe century.

A. K. Va/ic/i (quoted by • Russell, p. 87) suggests afigure of 0’5niJbr Mongolia in i/ic6th 9th centuries AD. This is no more i/ian an infornzedguess,for only one figure of usesurrii’es from the pre-niodern period. i/ic size of Geng/us K/ian c army. This was estab/is/ied at 129,000 men, whir/i H. D. Martin, The Rise of Chingis Khan and HisConquest of North China (1950). p. 14. considers conipai lb/c jilt//i a ioia/ Mongolianpopu/ation ofaroundO’75m. C. R. Bawden (The Modern History of Mongolia (1968))quotes a mid-I9ih-ceniury Russian estimate of ‘not much over 0’S,n ‘and G. S. Murp/iy(Soviet Mongolia (1966)) one made in 1918 oJ’aboui 0’7ni. The first census was takenin 1956, the second in 1969.

Mongolia

30

25

5

4

3

2

1

3?

o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o Q0Q~ 0000 ~1’- ~~ — ‘-, — —

(4 1975—’

Asia Area 3

ASIA AREA 4 China9’6m km2

The area within the frontiers of the People’s Republic of China falls naturally intotwo parts: on the one hand, China proper the area bounded by the Tibetan plateauand the Great Wall which is big, densely populated and racially Chinese; on theother hand, the outlying areas which together are even bigger and which either stillare, or were within living memory, sparsely inhabited with people of non-Chinesestock. To this second category we have added Taiwan (Formosa), which is small but,until relatively recently, was both underdeveloped and ethnically non-Chinese.

So we treat China under four headings:

4a Chinese Turkestan and Tibet area 3’6m km’2The pro wince of Tsinghai, the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region and theTibetan Autonomous Region.

4b Manchuria and Inner Mongolia area 2Om km’The pro winces of Heilungkiang Kirin and Liaoning, the hitter MongolianAutonomous Region and the Ningsia Hui Autonomous Region.

& China Proper area 4’Om km’The provinces of Kansu, Shensi, Shansi, Hopei. Shantung, Hanoi,, Anhwei,Kiangsu. Chekiang, Kiangsi, Hupel. Hunan, S:echiicin, Yunnan, Kn’eichoii’,Kwangtung and Fukien, plus the Ktiangsi C’huang Autonomous Region, thePort ug uese eolon,t’ of Macao and the British colony of Hong Kong.

4d Taiwan (Formosa) area O’036m km2

Migrations between the constituent parts of Area 4 boil down to emigrationfrom China proper to Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Taiwan, and so are treated insections 4b and 44. There are about t5m people of Chinese stock living outside Area4, the majority of them accounted for by the Chinese communities in Singapore(l75m), Malaysia (3’75m), Thailand (4m) and Indonesia (2’Sm).

I-- —

00—000000000000000000000 0 fl 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 i0 C ‘0 0 ‘0 0 10 0 ij~ 0.o~ ~ CO r- ~ Q~ 000 — — — — 4.c2

l975—~

Asia Area 4

50

4a Chinese Turkestan and TibetChinese central Asia is a desolate part ofthe world: two more hostile environments than the Takla Makan (the desertthat occupies the Tarim basin) and theTibetan plateau it would be hard toimagine. Yet the oases of the TaklaMakan have probably been inhabited aslong as man has walked the earth, forthey provide the stepping-stones between Near and Far East. By 4000 BC

we can think of a population of somethousands living in the Tarim oases,with a scattering of hunters and herds-men over the rest of the vast area. Thearea is, in fact, so vast that even at adensity of 003 per km2 we would have atotal population of over 100,000.

Over the succeeding millennia manwill have slowly learnt to make more

out of this unpromising habitat, Thehistorical landmarks that suggest periods of relatively rapid populationincrease are the appearance of horse-riding nomads in the last millenniumac, the opening of the Trans-Asian silkroute in the 1st century AD and the genesis of the Tibetan state in the 7th century AD. By AD I we can think in termsof a total population of Im, in AD 1000of 2m and by AD 1800 of 3m. Officialestimates for the end of the 19th centurysuggest a moderate growth in the late19th century. quickening in this centuryto produce a 1975 total of about 12m.Some third of this total would beMoslem Uighurs and roughly a quarterTibetans.

4b Manchuria and Inner Mongolia75

The steppe country north of Chinaproper is historically the domain of thenomads. With the evolution of the moreefficient horse-riding style of herding inthe last millennium ac we can assumethat the population of the area doubled,reaching a figure of 2m by AD I. In thenext 1.000 years it is reasonable tobelieve that it doubled again, for thenomads increase steadily in political importance during this period and thereis also a Chinese colony in southManchuria to take into account. Thegrowth of this colony was deliberatclyhalted by the Manchus after their conquest of China in 1644. With the aim ofpreserving the race the Manchus turnedtheir homeland into a sort of humangame reserve: Chinese immigration was

prohibitcd so that the Manchu stockand the Manchu way of life might continue uncontaminated.

This policy had to be reversed whenthe Russians appeared on the scene. Bythe second hall of the 19th centuryChinese immigration into Manchuriawas being positively encouraged in aneWort to forestall a Russian occupation.The flow of migrants, initially only atrickle, became a flood with the openingof the Peking—Mukden railway. By thelater 1920s half a million Chinese werepouring into Manchuria every year andit has been calculated that for the firsthalf of this century the total number ofimmigrants was of the order of 20m.Nearly all of them were Chinese fromthe overcrowded provinces along the

25

20

1510

5

25?

100

125?

50

25

20

1510

5

168 Asia Areas 4a—b

Primary Sources and Bibliographyfor Chinese Turkestan, Tibet, Manchuria and InnerMongolia (Areas 4a and 4b)

Fragmentary data for the steppe zone go back as Jar as the Han period: A. K. Validi(quoted by * Russell. p. 87) has used them to tizake crude estimates of the populations ofInner Mongolia and Otinese Turkestan in tile 1st century ftc and the 10th ccnturi’ AD.

Manchuria became part of the Chinese world at the end of the 10th century: contemporary estitnates ofpopulation in the 10th, 11th and 17th centuries are quoted in twoarticles in Population Index: 1945. P. 260, and 1952. P. 85. Tibet’s first census followed the Mongol conquest of the country in the 13th century (see H. E. Richardson,Tibet and its History (1962)): the results qf an 18th-century census are given in anarticle by W. Woodi’ille Rockhill in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1891. p.15).

The official 19th- and 20th-century estimates for all these areas are collected inDwight H. Perkins. Agricultural Development in China 568 1968 (1969). Sonic oftheni are almost ii’orthless. For example, the got’erntnent of Manchuria cotnpletelyfailed to appreciate the scale of the late-I 9th-cent ury inunigrat ion. It was only when theJapanese took oi’er the ad,ninistration in 1905 that it became apparent that the 1893estimate of 5’4m n’as impossibly low. Nor are things all that much better today. Thepresent government has admitted that in the case of remote areas where conimunicadons were poor figures in the 1953 returns Here no tnore than estimates. Given the rateof increase in the outer areas figures obtained by extrapolation from 1953 to 1975 aredoubli’ insecure.

4c China ProperThe chronology of the neolithic in peasants in the area either side of theChina is still a matter of dispute but we lower Huang Ho! which, together withdo know that the first farming commun- another million food-gatherers elseities grew up along the lower Huang Ho where in China, gives us a total figure(Yellow River) and that their agriculture for China proper of 2m.was based on wheat, not rice. By 3000 The population rise during theec we can think in terms of a million neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods

lower Huang Ho but about Im settlerscame in from Korea.

Inevitably, the newcomers haveswamped the Manchus. Though 24mpeople gave Manchu as their race in the1953 enumeration it is believed that onlyl0”~ of these were actually living inManchu-speaking communities. The rest

had been culturally absorbed by the 40mChinese who dominated the province.

Much the same thing has happened tothe Mongols of Inner Mongolia. Perhaps a quarter of the l’3m reported in1953 were still leading the nomadic life:the rest were sinking into a Chinesepopulation five times as large.

China Proper

. -

Peking

I. I

T~e Great Wall

‘ ‘ szisct WAN

KWEIchow

YUNNAN KWANQSI

c‘II

I—

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Q 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 Oto Q tOO too too tOO

~ ~— ~ ~(30 ,l — — — *01

1975~~I

170 Asia Area 4c’

was slow. But it was also steady as, withthe accumulation of agricultural experience, crop yields improved allowing anincrease in population density within thecultivated area. And the cultivated areaitself expanded. However, even in thefull Bronze Age the era known as theShang period because during it kings ofthe Shang Dynasty claimed overlordship over the whole of the lower HuangHo area the agricultural zone did notexceed Im km2. nor the populationwithin it Sm, nor the population ofChina proper 6m.

With the collapse of the Shanghegemony around 1000 ~c, civilizedChina split up into a dozen warringstates. Surprisingly, the rate of population increase quickened. This was partlybecause an irrigation system was beingdeveloped in the Yellow River basin.and partly because the valley of theYangtse was now being brought undercultivation. By 400 Bc there were notless than 25m people in an agriculturalzone that Covered the northern half ofthe country. The contemporary population of the southern half ethnicallyconsisting of non-Chinese peoplesrelated to the Thai is unlikely to haveexceeded l0”~ of the figure for theChinese peasantry in the north.

In the last quarter of the last millennium ac, political unification, first achieved in 221 BC, provided the background for continuing growth. Early onin the days of the Han Empire (206 acAD 220) the population passed the SOmmark. But thereafter it was to stay in theband 45—60m for a thousand years. Thispoor demographic performance matchesthat of Europe in the late Roman andearly medieval periods with an exactnessthat is hard to explain.

The breakthrough to new demographic ground came during the Sungperiod around the year 1000. The basisfor the new advance was fuller exploita

tion of the rice-growing potential of theYangtse valley and there was consequently a southward shift in thecountry’s political centre of gravity. Theeffect intensified in the years immediately after 1211, when GenghizKhan first led the Mongol hordes acrossthe Gobi to attack China proper. Thiswas the beginning of one of the bitterestand most prolonged wars of conquest inworld history. The Mongols, thoughhardly ever checked on the battlefield,had such trouble making lastingprogress in the city-studded countrysideof north China that they eventuallyswitched from a policy of massacre inpunishment for rebellion to one ofstraight genocide. Within a decade.flight and the Mongol fury had reducedthe population of the northernprovinces by three quarters or more.Though the subsequent conquest of thesouthern areas was faster and lessbloody, the country as a whole lost perhaps a third of its numbers by the timethe war was over. The loss around35m on this estimate is a staggeringone for the era.

Mongol Khans ruled China for a littlemore than a century. In the upheavalsthat accompanied their expulsion andreplacement by emperors of the nativeMing Dynasty, the demographicrecovery that had begun in the late 13thcentury was aborted. But when growthwas resumed it was sustained: a benignand orderly government encouraged thephiloprogenitive Chinese to give fullrein to their reproductive talents and thepopulation doubled in the course of thenext two centuries. On the eve of theManchu invasion there were aroundISOm Chinese within China proper.

The Manchu conquest cost Chinaabout a sixth of her population say25m people. By 1700 this loss had beenmade up and in the political calm of the18th century came a population surge

that carried the total past the 300mmark. This rate of growth l00°~ in 100years was too fast to be good: there wasnow little scope for further extensions tothe area under cultivation and the techniques of cultivation had hardlychanged for centuries. The Malthusianspectre of overpopulation had arrived.Few doubt that this was an importantfactor in the political troubles that nowovertook China, the series of revolts ofwhich the most famous and mostdamaging was the Taiping rebellion of1850—65. The Manchus, against mostexpectations, succeeded in suppressingthese rebellions. The cost has never beenaccurately determined figures of theorder of 25m are hazarded but wascertainly sufficiently large to put anoticeable kink in the populationgraph.

The pattern of hopeless poverty andendemic strife was to continue into the

20th century when the Manchu government finally collapsed. By the time thecommunists succeeded in restoringorder in 1949, China had behind it acentury of remarkably low populationgrowth something of the order of 25°c.World population during the same period rose by more than 100°,.

Of course, even small percentage risescan result in colossal absolute gainswhen the existing population ismeasured in hundreds of millions. Withthe return of peace and the appearanceof the sort of growth rate one wouldexpect in the case of an underdevelopedcountry in the 20th century, the magnitude of the increase in Chinesepopulation becomes staggering of theorder of a million a month. The 1975population of China proper is at least720m and could be lOOm more: projections for the year 2000 fall in the 950l.250m range.

Minorities and Endures

Figures as big as a billion make the statistics of the minority and enclave populations of China look silly. However, for what they are worth, here they are:

Minorities(I) The 7m Chuang, who are related to the Thai. form roughly one third of the

population of what is now the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region in thesouth-west of China proper. In neighbouring Kweichow are l25m similar peoplegoing under the name of Puyi.

(2) Along the southern half of the border with Tibet in Szechwan and Yunnanprovinces are 325m Yi and 25m Miao. The Yi are relatives of the Tibetans. TheMiao rank as an independent member of the Sino-Tibetan group.

Enclaves(I) Hong Kong. The area of present day Hong Kong had a negligible population

(e.l0,000) when ceded to Britain in 1842. By 1900 the population was O25m, in1975 it reached 425m. The projection for the year 2000 is 6m.

(2) Macao has been a Portuguese possession since 1849. Its population in 1900 was008m; it is now over 025m.

Primary Sources

Though the Chinese “ale heeti counting headc ever since the dais of she ii’arring statesin tile 1st millennium B C, the earliest surl’i ving figure is/br the nitmhcr of households in

173172

the Han Empire 118,;,. The figure refèrs to the tear AD 2. For the period bet ‘teenA D 2 and 1194 Durand (see below) lists twenti’-one enumerations of which sonicresults soniettmes only the final total are still extant. These enumerations, plus thefigures that survive from the Mongol period. give the order of magtntude of the populatic,? of China proper prior to the first reliable count the Ming enumeration of 1393.Since then, counts hare been taken at irregular intervals and estitnates issued to coverthe intervening periods. As there is no registration ofbirths or deaths, the estimates canonly be crude: less than tuent;’ years after the only half-war accurate etiumeration heldin this century, tlte count taken by the communist goi’erntnent in 1953. officialestimates for the country’s population varl’ hr up to 7°~ on either side of’the mean ofallthe estitnates, Given the magnitude of the popitlation. this tneans that the range ofuncertainty is tio;t’ 10Dm and growitig fast.

Bibliography

For educated guesses at the population of china under the Shang (c. 1100 ac) andduring the period of the ‘Warring States’ (c.400 BC).scc Wolfram Eberhard’s Historyof China (1967), pp. 21 and 25. For the census figures for the Han period on, see J. D.Durand’s article in Population Studies 13 (3) 1960. and for the Ming period onward.see Ping-Ti Ho. Studies on the Population of China 1368 1953 (1959). There isagood discussion of the 1953 enumeration and the likely population changes since then inLeo A. Orleans. Every Fifth Child: The Population of China (1972).

When the Chinese began to colonizeTaiwan in the 17th century it wasinhabited by about 200,000 aboriginesof Malayo-Polynesian stock. Presumablythis native population, which hasremained at the same level since, hadgrown slowly over the preceding millennia. The arrival ofChinese settlers startedthe island on a very different demographic course, immigration bringing thetotal population up to 2m by the beginning of the 19th century and 3m by 1900.

Growth accelerated during the periodof Japanese rule 0895 1945) and moved


into even higher gear with the establishment of the Chinese Nationalist government on the island in 1949. Though the03m Japanese who had settled onTaiwan were expelled at the end of theSecond World War! their places weremore than filled by the 2m Chinese whoarrived from the mainland in flight fromthe communists. These refugees boostedthe birth rate to a record figure andthough the rate of increase is now slackening it is unlikely that the island’spopulation will be less than 20m whenthe century ends.

35

Taiwan

4d Taiwan (Formosa)

30

10

5

4

3

2

1

00,l 00000000000000000000~ 2 ~ ~ U, tOO

00 —l — — — s0t1975—i

The Manchus enumerated the Chinese population of Ta/nan in 181) and 1887. theJapanese instituted a quinquennial census in 1905. The data are presented by IreneTaeuber in an article on p. 101 of’the 1961 issue of Population Index.

174 Asia Area 4d

ASIA AREA 5

The population of the Korean peninsularemained at a mesolithic level until wellon in the last millennium BC: numbersin this phase are unlikely to haveexceeded 10.000. In the next period.covering the years between 500 and 100BC. the practice of agriculture becamegeneral and consequently numbers roseto a final total of about 02m. However,it was still a comparatively emptycountry that lay before the first Chinesearmy to reach Korea. an event that is

— dated to 108 BC and marks the beginning of the historical record.

The Chinese established a protectorate over the north-west corner of Koreaand planted a colony there. The numberof colonists was probably only a few

bet thousand, but their presence stimulatedthe natives into political consciousness.Three kingdoms arose and for mostof the rest of the first millennium AD

they divided the peninsula betweenthem. The Chinese colonists and theJapanese fishermen and pirates whofrequented the south coast were expelled during this period, which saw thepopulation figures climb to somethingover 2m by AD 1000.

Five hundred years later Korea’spopulation wasapproaching4m Growthhad been steady apart from the setbackinflicted by the Mongol conquest in the13th century. There was a similar pausein the late 16th and early 17th centuriesas a new set of invaders fought their wayup and down the country the Japanese

KoreaO-22m km’(North 0-12, South OIO)

in 1592. the Manchus in 1627 and 1636:then growth was resumed. By 1800 thepopulation was 7’Sm and by 1900 12m.In the first half of the 20th century. theperiod of Japanese occupation (190545), the pace vastly accelerated: by 1950the total was 30m.

The liberation of the country fromJapanese rule was followed by itsdivision: the northern part of thecountry, containing a third of thepopulation, became a Russian satellite;the southern part, marginally smaller interms of area but containing two thirdsof the population, looked to the USAfor its ideology and protection. Theinequality of numbers soon becamemore marked as thousands fled fromthe communist north to the free south.a movement that was to becomea flood on the outbreak of open war in1950

The war of 1950 53 cost the lives ofmore than 3m Koreans. It also led tothe displacement of about 3m peoplefrom north to south. It is a tribute to theresilience of the peninsula’s inhabitantsthat the holocaust scarcely notches thepopulation graph. Since the cessationof hostilities, both sides have showna truly remarkable capacity for growth.South Korea, taking Japan as its model,has followed the path of all-out development. Its people, now numbering 35m.are just beginning to have their economic expectations fulfilled. In the north,so far as can be ascertained, growth has

Korea

8 880000000000000000000 0 0 at Q at 0 at o at 0 at 0(0 t.- ~ 0) 0

—————-4 — — — 1975~

176Asia Area 5

been somewhat less (1975 pop. 15m) butthen the north suffered far moreseverely from the war, lithe two coun

tries go on at their present rate, theircombined population in the year 2000will be in the order of 75m.

ASIA AREA 6 Japan&37m km2(O-06m km’ arabic)


Apart from a set offigures for the number of households at the beginning of the lot/icent un’. the earliest data to survive are sonic totals front tile triennial ‘census’ htctitutedhi 1639. Front 1678 on, the flgitres are consistent and believable. The sante cannot hesaid of the new series of ‘censuses’ instituted in 1807: only thefirst figure is of ani’ use,the remainder showing a stationarl’ population (presitniabli’ to indicate that there wasno basis for increasing taxation) at a time when we can he sure that the population “asexpanding rapidli’. There is consequently a Fawning gap bet n’een the last Korean figure(5’7m in 1904) and the first Japanese esthnate (13’3ni in 1910) which in itself hascertainli’ an underestimate. The Japanese instituted a population register and, startingin 1925, a quinquennial census. Since thet’ left, there have been censuses hi South Koreahi 1949, 1952, 1960, 1966 and 1970: the North Korean government has producedofficial esthnates though it is unclear on what these are based.

The figitres of interest to the historical demographer are tabulated in Hoon K, Lee.Land Utilisation and Rural Economy in Korea (1936).

Agriculture reached Japan comparatively late, its introduction to Kyushubeing dated to about 250 BC. At first itsspread along the island chain wasrapid farmers had reached the Kanto.the plain round Tokyo, by the beginningof the Christian era. The last leg wentmore slowly, the northern quarterremaining the exclusive property ofthe pre-agriculturalists, the Ainu, untilaround AD 900, As for Hokkaido, thedevelopment of the special agriculturaltechniques necessary for the colonizationof this, the least welcoming of the Japanese islands, took place only in the late19th century. So throughout Japan’shistory two processes have been goingon side by side: an increase in total numbers and a movement of the demographiccentre of gravity outwards along theisland arc,

Towards the end of the food-gathering stage, that is around 400 Bc,

the population of Japan consisted ofabout 30,000 hunters and fishermen.With the introduction of wet rice cultivation the rise in numbers must havebeen rapid: certainly the 300,000 figurewill have been reached by AD I and the3m mark by the time the Japanese stateemerged in AD 650. All the indicationsare that the population continued togrow fairly steadily over the next millennium, increasing on average by abouttwo thirds every two centuries with aslight quickening of the rate in the late15th century bringing the total up to30m by 1700.

What followed, an 125-year period ofzero growth, has usually been regardedas a textbook example of Malthusianchecks operating in a closed societyFrom this unhappy condition theJapanese were liberated by CommodorePerry, who in 1853, on the orders of theUnited States government, forciblyopened up Japan to Western shippingand Western ideas. So goes the story. Infact, there is convincing evidence toshow that population growth cannothave been checked by sheer wantbecause the Japanese improved theirstandard of living and their nationalresources during this period. It is nowconsidered that, by allowing time for theprocesses of urbanization and capitalaccumulation to mature, the policy ofisolation, whatever its initial rationale,served an important social purpose,and that the Japanese could not havecoped as well as they did with the problems of Westernization without this period of consolidation. The limitation offamily size which allowed the increase inwealth seems to have been achievedpartly by infanticide, partly by latermarriage.

Once Westernization was under waythe population soared. Between 1850and 1950 the rise was from 32m to 84m,a gain of over 150°,. Part of the nation’ssurging energies went into the creationof an overseas empire, an adventure thatat first cost relatively few Japanese livesbut ended up with the Second WorldWar, economic collapse and 2’4m dead.

179

175It now seems a curious aberration in aprocess of industrialization which hasgone from victory to victory.

Since the Second World War theJapanese have recognized that they havea population problem on their hands.By terminating Im pregnancies a yearthey have kept this within bounds andthe hope is that the steadily falling birthrate will permit the country to enter

another period of zero populationgrowth at the turn of the century. Bythen there will be about l25m people In

the Japanese and Ryukyu archipelagoswhich, considering that only l6°~ of theland area is cultivatable, seems likeenough. The Ainu, incidentally, havedeclined slowly over the last 2,000 years:there are now less than 10,000 of themleft.

Primary Sources

Japanese tradition tells of a population count held in the year AD 610 which returned afigure of Sit,. Totals of this t;pe cannot he accepted as suggesting more than an order ofmagnitude. hut there can be no doubt that proper surveys of Japan s population weremade from the 9th century onwards because fragments oJ’household registers and/andallotment records survive. These can be used as a basis of tnoderately reliable calculations of the o,’erall population in the period 800—1600. In the second half of the 17thcentury the quality of’the surviving information impro~’es sharply: there are records ofenumerations carried out in many diffrrent counties, in some of them on several occasions. And since the early 1St/i century the demographic record is clear, for in 1721the shogun (regent) ordered a nat ion ,,‘ide count and in 1726 a regular six-yearly census“as instituted. This census has its gaps (1738, 1810. 1816 and 1840) but “as kept goinguntil the middle of the 19th century. In 1871 a regLctration system was introducedwhich, in theory at least, made annual population figures available. The first of thepresent quinquennial series of true censuses “as held in 1920.

Bibliography

All the historical data are given in The Population of Japan by Irene 8. Taeuber(1958). For the interpretation of the statistics of’ the 18th and 19th centuries see thearticle hi’ Hanle,’ and Yama,nura in Glass and Rerelle, pp. 451ff

Japan.

150

125 125?

100 ‘

~1S

750

KYUSHU

0~

4

•‘RYUKYUS

50___li..

25

20

15

10

5- --

00—00000000000000000000

~ S0 000 lL~ 0~O 0 O in 0oo_. — — — —

Asia Area 6

The Indian1250?

The population of the Indian subcontinent in 10,000 cc Can be estimated atabout 100,000. Its rate of increase waslow and remained so until 5000 cc,when the practice of agriculture beganto spread into the north-west, the Indusvalley, from Afghanistan. By 4000 ccthere was a respectable population inthis area, perhaps as high as a million:by 2000 cc, when the Indus valleycivilization usually named after one orother of its two chief towns, Mohenjodaro and Harappa — reached its fullflowering, there were possibly Sm in thelndus valley as against Im in the stillmesolithic remainder of the subcontinent.

The Indus valley civilization collapsedand disappeared, surprisingly completely, around 1600 cc. Apparentlythis was a result of the invasion ofIranian tribes the legendary Aryanscoming from the far side ofAfghanistan. Certainly Indo-Europeanlanguages of the Aryan group nowbecame dominant throughout the northern two thirds of the subcontinentwhile the Dravidian languages spokenby the creators of the Indus valleycivilization were confined to the southern third. On the other hand many ofthe cultural peculiarities that now characterize the northern ‘Aryan’ zone seem

182

Subcontinent4-Sm km2

4-22m km’

0-SOm km23-27m km2O-14m km2

to have been evolved by the Dravidiansbefore the Aryan invasion, sopresumably the newcomers imposedthemselves on the natives there ratherthan exterminated them. The culturalsetback was major though, with nourban settlement on the scale ofMohenjo-daro or Harappa appearinganywhere in the subcontinent for thenext thousand years.

The upturn from this dark age beganwith the introduction of iron-workingfrom Iran in the 8th century nc and thedevelopment of rice cultivation at muchthe same time. Iron tools cleared theGanges valley, rice supported a population boom there and the demographiccentre of the country now moved firmlyto where it has always remained since,the Gangetic provinces of UttarPradesh. Bihar and Bengal. By 500 ccthe subcontinental total had reached25m, of whom l5m lived in the Gangesbasin: by 200 cc. when the Guptas ofBihar had put together the first majorIndian empire, the figures were 30m and20m.

The next fifteen hundred years consolidated without significantly alteringthis pattern. The population totalsslowly mounted, reaching SOm in the6th century. 80m in the 12th, and lOOmby the end of the 15th. Presumably the

ASIA AREA 7

7a Pakistan, India and Bangladesh

The IndianSubcontinent

7a-I Pakistan7a-2 India7a-3 Bacgladesh

CHINA

B11UrAN511(1GM

800

700

600

PAKISTANINDIA &BANGLADESH

7a

500

400

SRI i.AN1C4 fib)

II

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00’00U2 Q100

~ 0 L~- ~ O~ 000 “ — — J

1975

Asia Area 7

1200?

vicissitudes of empires, the onslaught ofepidemics and the fluctuations of foodsupply kinked the graph on many occasions, but of these we know almostnothing. The political fragmentation ofthe country makes it difficult to generalize from such local data as exist and,before the Moghul era, little is left fromthe few brief moments of near-unity thatdid occur. The comparison with China’sgraph, so often notched by catastrophe.is striking but could easily be due toChina’s better records. Happy is thegraph that has no history.

With the rise of the Moghuls wearrive at modern times: In the courseof the 16th century the new dynastsbrought most of the subcontinent undertheir rule: their advance coincided withan unprecedented demographic andeconomic upsurge which boosted thepopulation total from lOOm in AD 1500to 145m in AD 1650. How far, if at all,this impetus was lost in the years ofMoghul decline is uncertain. Thoughthe period is clearly one of considerablelocal disorder it is difficult to believethat overall totals fell at any time in the18th century: certainly by the century’send growth was accelerating again.When the British took control in theyears immediately before and after I 800,the population of the subcontinentproper was approaching 200m.

Rapid growth continued in the 19thcentury, though when it becomes possible to examine the process in detail(i.e. after the institution of the census in1867 72) it is apparent that progresswas far from smooth. There was, in fact,a peculiar staircase effect in whichdecades of rapid increase alternatedwith decades of little or no growth. Thelast such pause occurred in 1911 20when, largely because of the 20m deathscaused by the influenza pandemic of1918, the population actually fellslightly.

Since 1920 long-term growth has beenunimpeded, even though at times faminehas taken a massive toll several millions in Bengal in 1943 for instance. Theexplanation of this acceleration isstraightforward. Better administrationand better transport made it possible tocontain an increasing proportion offamines, then the more easily controlleddiseases declined under the impact ofsimple public-health measures. Deathrates fell, birth rates continued as highas ever, population totals rose to staggering heights to 431m in 1950 and745m in 1975. If the next quarter century sees the same rate of growth as thelast and the evidence suggests that itwill the figure in AD 2000 will certainlynot be less than I,200m.

In 1947 British India was split threeways in an attempt to give as many aspossible of the Moslems their ownnation, Pakistan. The division was notmade easily. Minority groups that foundthemselves on the wrong sides of thenew borders were often forced to fleeunder threat of massacre: about l7mpeople moved; 025m who didn’t died.The division was also an awkward one.The original Pakistan consisted of twogeographically separate areas whichgradually pulled apart politically. In1971 India helped the eastern half tosecede under the name Bangladesh, sonow Pakistan means the western halfonly. (We use it in this way in the rest ofthis section, even when referring to the1947 71 period.)

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh arerelatively homogeneous nations. Pakistan is 97°~ Moslem and 66°. Punjabispeaking. Bangladesh is 80°c Moslemand 98°,, Bengali-speaking. India is byany standard heterogeneous. Thoughthe initial partition of 1947 was madeon religious grounds India is still II”,,Moslem, which means that it has a current Moslem population of 66m. It also

800

Pakistan, India andBangladesh

~1

7a-1 • Delhi~ • JITAR

Mohenjo-daro PRADESI IKarachi

1II

I7a—2

INDIA

BIIIARBENGAL

7a—3BANGLADESH

700

600

500

400

300

290

100

75

5025

00~0000000000000000000000 fl 000000000 0~ 000~’ 0 t~ 0 ~0

CD t- ~ G~ 0

— — — ;jOa

184Asia Area 7a

contains l5m Christians, 12m Sikhs, 4mBuddhists and 3m Jaiñs, not inconsiderable minorities even though the nationas a whole is more than 800 Hindu Butthe real diversity is in language. Lessthan a third of the population speaksthe officially recognized nationaltongue, Hindi. Very sizable numbersspeak Bengali (48m). Marathi (42m),Urdu (30m) or Gujerati (28m) theother major Aryan languages whileabout a quarter speak languages of thequite unrelated Dravidian group(Telegu. Tamil, Malayalam andKanarese).

In absolute numbers India has a farlarger population than either Pakistanor Bangladesh: 600m as against 70mand 74m respectively. But Pakistan hasthe highest growth rate, a situationwhich, as can be seen from the retrospective estimates in the table below, hasexisted since the mid 19th century. Alow initial density and a steady expansion of the irrigated area have helped tosustain this. In Bangladesh an equallyhigh fertility has been counterbalancedby the high mortality sadly characteristic of this overcrowded and disaster-prone land. With a current densityfigure of 529 per km’ (contrast India’s183 per km2, Pakistan’s 88 per km’ and

the 400 per km2 of Europe’s top-ranker,the Netherlands) Bangladesh has theThird World’s problems about as badlyas possible. In India the trouble is reallyone of scale. The geometric increasesthat now threaten are so enormous as tomake clear thinking about them difficult. If Pakistan and Bangladesh continue at their present rates of growththey will add 78m and 56m to theirpresent populations by the end of thecentury, figures that are comprehensible.If India carries on as now, her population in the year 2000 will be larger by400m, a really fearsome addition to aland already overloaded with people.

Despite the pressure of poverty andoverpopulation Indians are reluctantemigrants. Though the total outflowover the last century and a half amountsto about 35m, the return movement hasbeen so high that the net effiux worksout at only 7m, hardly enough to affectthe statistics of the homeland at all. Themost important overseas populationsare in Sri Lanka (2-8m), Malaysia(1-Im) and the U.K. (Im); communitiesbetween 0-Sm and 0’75m strong exist inSouth Africa, Mauritius and Burma andsmaller ones (between 0’25m and 0’Sm)in East Africa, Trinidad, Guyana andFiji.

these immigrants were not, as might beexpected. Tamils or any other of theDravidian-speaking people who inhabitsouth India, they were the Aryans fromsomewhere in the north of the subcontinent. Moreover these Aryans, the ancestors of the modern Sinhalese, first ofall created an irrigating agriculture ofImpressive size and elaboration, then,after a thousand years of development,suddenly abandoned it. They movedfrom the northern half of the island (theDry Zone) to the south (the Wet Zone),leaving the extreme north to berecolonized by Tamils and their originalcapital Anuradhapura an empty ruin.

This dramatic change took place inthe second half of the 12th century.There was a certain amount of warfaregoing on between the Sinhalese and theTamils at the time, but then there nearlyalways was: as a reason for the abandoning of the Dry Zone it is quiteunbelievable. Something made theprevious mode of cultivation impossible(malaria? — irrigation tanks are idealbreeding grounds- for mosquitoes), orunpopular (a devolutionary change inSinhalese society making large-scaleenterprises impossible to sustain?), orsimply obsolete (the development of better methods of clearing the forest in theWet Zone?). Interestingly enough theKhmers of Indo-China 1.500 miles awaylo the north-east began to abandon theirexactly similar system of tank irrigationabout the same time (see Asia Area 8c).

The Dry Zone phase of Sinhalese history had seen the population growslowly to Im. There is no reason tobelieve that there was any significani fallin numbers at its end for there was nowa compensating development of the WetZone. There was also the movement ofTamils into Ihe extreme north. Nevertheless, if the population didn’t fall, itdidn’t grow much, passing the l-5mlevel only in the course of the 18thcentury. This was the period whenthe island was divided between theSinhalese Kingdom of Kandy and theDutch who controlled the littoral.

The British took over from the Dutchin 1795. During the next quarter centurythey extended their rule over the interioras well as the coast and they finally leftonly in 1948. Their contributions to thedemography of the island were two:they brought in a new lot of Tamils towork on the tea plantations they established and they released a demographicup-swing that has recently outpaced theisland’s economy and agriculture. Thenew Tamils (‘Indian Tamils’) are evenmore unpopular with the Sinhalese thanthe ‘Ceylon Tamils’, and some havebeen compulsorily repatriated. However, Tamils of one sort or anothermake up one fifth of the island’s population. This now totals 14m, having morethan tripled since the beginning of thecentury. It is likely to be well over 20mby the year 2000.

7b Sri LankaThe island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) has apeculiar history. The original inhabitants, a few thousand mesolithic Vedda,

O-066m kin’

were overwhelmed by iron-using, rice-growing immigrants from India in thecourse of the last five centuries BC. But

70 NepalThe 18th and 19th centuries saw theestablishment of the nation of Nepal inits modern form, largely as a result ofthe activities of the Gurka clan. Beforethen we must think in terms of a collec

O-14m km2

tion of borderland valleys of which thatof Katmandu was the most significant,inhabited by a borderline people, partMongol and part Indian with Indianinfluence usually predominating. In

Area of: 1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975Bangladesh 23 24 29 34 42 74India 189 210 237 260 356 600Pakistan II 12 16 22 33 70

186 187

• 22?

Primary Sources

There are records of the Indian population being counted as far back as the middle ofthe 1st millennium ac but the practice, apparently flourishing under the Guptas. frIlinto disuse later, and no records seem to survive. So one is left with the problem ofapplying multipliers to the surviving, not very reliable, records of villages, monasteries,armies and elephants. Local population records do survive from Moghul times onwards,but they haven’t been thoroughly explored yet and present many difficulties as sourcesofgeneral subcontinental estimates. Early European counts, both in India and Ceylon,are perhaps more useful, but even on these work is only just beginning.

The first all-India census was taken between 1867 and 1872, followed in 1881 by thefirst in a regular decennial series. Coverage of both area and population can beregarded as substantially complete from 1901. India and the two halves of Pakistancontinued the series after independence but the break-up between (West) Pakistan andBangladesh caused their 1971 censuses to be postponed to 1972 and 1974 respectively.Sri Lanka has a decennial series from 1871 to 1931, which then proceeds irregularly1946, 1953, 1963 and 197). Nepal has some partial 19th-century counts, then a seriesof increasingly accurate censuses at roughly decennial intervals from 1911.

Bibliography

There are two general guides to the estimation of the population of the Indian subcontinent before the 20th century: the paper by Ajit das Gupta in Glass and Revelle, andthe section of * Durand dealing with India. The iwo most recent sets of estimates arethose of J. M. Datia. for 1600 onwards, in the Population Bulletin of India 1(1960)and those by J. C. Russell in two articles in the Journal of Indian History 47 (1969)and 50 (1973). There is reasonable agreement between most estimates back to 1600;before that date Russell gives a series that is generally lower than other estimates, butin line with the assumptions of this book.

For the 19th and earlier parts of the 20th century. the basic source is Kingsley Davis,The Population of India and Pakistan (1951). while a useful recent consideration isthat of das Gupta. For post-1947 population movements the • United Nations 1974World Population Confrrence background paper on migration is useful, and there is anarticle by C. Jayawardena in the Geographical Review 58 (1968) on Indians overseas.

Sri Lanka is covered by Irene Taeuher in Population Index 15(1949). and by N. K.Sarkar Demography of Ceylon (1957). There is little on Nepal apart from K. J.Krotki and II. N. Thakur in Population Studies 25(1). 1971. and the official statistics.

5

4

3

2

o o 10 0 10 0 in5 5005 § 555000000000000~02 — — —

l975—~

population terms there were perhaps I mpeople by the first century AD. and 2mby 1500. Growth since 1800, when thepopulation was 4m, has been faster, butnot spectacular by Asian standards;numbers reached 5’5m in 1900 and12’5m in 1975.

A 10 percent addition to these figurestakes care of the other Himalayanstates, Sikkim (to the west of Nepal:area 0’OIm km2. current population0’2m) and Bhutan (to the west ofSikkim: area 0’OSm km2. current population Im).

Sri Lanka15

INDIA

10 •Anuradhapura

Coiornbo • Kandy

15

Nepalis?

CHINA

10INDIA

188 Asia Areas 7b—c

ASIA AREA 8 South-East Asia4-OSm km2

8a Burma fr68m km2

The prehistory of South-East Asia islittle known, and that of Burma isobscure even by Asian standards. Untilthe 2nd millennium BC the area of themodern nation was inhabited by apre-agricultural population numbering30,000 at the most: at this point the infiltration of agricultural techniques startedthe population graph on a rising trendso that by AD I numbers had risen toIm. The pattern was one of fairly evendistribution through the lowland partsof the country but with different races innorth, south and east. In the south thepeople were Mons, members of theMon Khmcr family of the South-EastAsian fringe. In the north they wereBurmans belonging to the quite different Tibeto-Burman group of the south-central Asian massif. In the east theywere Shans, close relatives of the Thai.

Over the next millennium the overallpopulation figure rose to 2m, the northestablished a preponderance over thewhole country and the culture settled inan Indian and Buddhist mould. Theintroduction of wet-rice cultivationprovided the basis for a further expansion in the population, which was nowthree quarters Burman. By the earlymodern period (c.1700) the King ofBurma ruled 4m of the Sm people in thearea of the modern state and his courthad acquired the hectic splendour of asuccessful oriental despotism.

Friction with the British colonialadministration in India brought aboutthe downfall of this Burmese monarchy. Successive slices of the countrywere taken into British control between1824 and 1885, and by 1900, whenthe population had reached 12Sm, allBurma was a tranquil province of theBritish Empire. The subsequent colonialperiod saw the annual rice productiontotal multiply even laster than thepeople, so that Burma became an important rice-exporting nation. It alsosaw the creation of two immigrant communities, Indian and Chinese.

British control was only fleetinglyreasserted after the Japanese conquestof Burma in the Second World War andsince 1948 the Burmese have once againbeen independent people able to indulgeto the full their traditional isolationism.The population has increased to 30mand now consumes all the rice it grows.Of the minorities the Chinese community has grown from 02m in 1950 to 05mtoday: the Indian community on theother hand has dwindled since the withdrawal of the British patronage on whichit depended: it numbers OSm today asagainst Im in 1941. The rest of thepopulation is split 80—18 betweenBurmese and Shans, with Mons accounting for the odd 2”~,

Burma

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 fl 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 10 0 10 0 10 0 10

to o- ~ 0)00 ‘. — — eq

1975

Asia Area8a


The bibliography of Bur~nese demography is best described as thin. The only pre-colontat item WorK Ii noting is an article hi’ H. Barney in the Journal of the StatisticalS~iety (1842), 4 (4). which for its date is a remarkah/r good attempt to estimate thepopulation of a non-European country. The basic prhnar;’ source he used is a ‘lousecount of /783 there was another in 1826 but oJ’ less reliahi/iti’: the estimate nit/i

which he final/i’ emerged was 42,,; for an area significant?)’ smaller than that of thepresent nation.

The colonial census pattern fbi/on’s that of British hit/ia, i.e. decennial censuses from1871 to 1941 •i’ith substantial corrections and a4/ustment needed for the 1871. 1881and 1891 returns. The sole census since independence was taken in 1973.

Sb Thailand 0-Mm km2

Though little is known of the prehistoryof Thailand an important lacuna, forin this part of the world prehistorylasted till well on in the Christian erathe general pattern must have consistedof the slow transformation of an ancienthunting and fishing community into afood-producing one several orders ofmagnitude larger. Reasonable guesses atthe sort of figures involved would be25,000 in 5000 BC, 0’2m in 1000 BC and0’Sm in AD I. By the 10th century AD,

when the mists clinging to the early history of the country begin to clear, wecan think in terms of a round million.

The Thai made up only half thepopulation of Thailand at this time: theMon were equally important, indeedpreponderant in the south. This northsouth polarity which is a recurrenttheme in South-East Asian history hasalways been resolved in favour of thenortherners, in this case the Thai. Theirprogress down the Menam valley, theaxis of the country, is marked politicallyby the successive transfers of capitalfrom Sukhotai (founded in the l3thcen-

tury) to Ayuthia (in the next century)and Bangkok (in 1769).

In the early modern period Thai multiplication was far from spectacular: ittook from 1500 to 1800 for total numbers to rise from 2m to 3m. The changeto the modern pattern began in the 19thcentury, during which the augmentationwas over l00”~. The story is a familiarone, with wider contacts initiating ageneral economic and demographicadvance: the unusual features are thepreservation of political independenceand the speed with which the agricultural base was expanded. Rice production consistently out-paced populationgrowth, so that the country had becomea major exporter of rice by the end ofthe century. The resulting prosperity attracted a stream of Chinese immigrants.

Since 1950 the Thai growth rate hasbeen above ~ per annum: Thailand’s42m people could well have become 80mby the century’s end. The Chinese minority, now just over l0°~, has so far keptits identity in an otherwise homogeneous populalion.

Thailand

000000000000000000000000 ~ 000000000 0”’ 0 It) 0100100 IL)•02 CQ~O~O,-iOJO~~I0 0 000 — ‘-‘ — —

1975—’192 Asia Area Sb


The nearest thing to primary data bef~re (lie 20th century are rite est “flaws given byEuropean travellers. Thai ,,iuster rolls, long since vanished. may lie behind the earliestof these a figure of’ 1’9,,i adult males in 1688 hut if’ they do they are small loss forthe figure is absurdly inflated and the rolls must have been asse,nbled to impress rat/icrthan inform. Some of the 19th-century figures on (lie other hand are quite con tinting:for instance Cranfurd’s 1830 esuniate of 2’73m (for a smaller area than the present)and Ingramn ‘s of Sm or on; in 1850 (see Fisher).

The census series starts in 1910/Il and continues to the present with increasingaccuracy. Adjustments to the publishedfigures are considered (though not very c’lcarlr)by Ajit Das Gupta and others in Sankya, Series 8, 27 (1965).

Thailand’s demographic history from the 17th century on has been swnniari:ed bythree ,t’rilers: G. W. Skinner in Chinese Society in Thailand (1957): L. Sternstcin inPacific Viewpoint 6 (May 1965).’ and 8. Thomlinson hi Thailand’s Population (1971).Although they use very much the same sources, their conclusions, particularly on thepre-1 9th-century trends, arc 1101 al.i’ays congruent.

8c Indo-China

In the 3rd millennium nc the indigenouspopulation of Indo-China, some 40.000strong, was transformed into an expanding community by the acquisitionof agriculture. By A D I this communityhad multiplied up to the million. It wasalready polarized both ethnically andculturally, the north being inhabitedby the Viet, who were politically andsocially under the influence of China,the south by the Khmer, whose culturederived from India. The history of thefollowing 1200 years is essentially amatter of the changing balance between these two forces, with the Lao(who are a Thai people) playing a spectator’s role in the underdevelopedhinterland.

At first the south predominated and

Sc-I Vietnam

O-75m km’

O-33m km2

8c-2 Laos O-24ni km28c-3 The Khmer Republic 0-IBm km2

direct or indirect Khmer rule spreadover southern Thailand, southern Laosand south and central Vietnam. Thegrandiose ruins of Angkor Wat are atestimonial to the magnificence of thisKhmer Empire at its peak: the name it

means City of Water’ is a reminder ofthe Khmer’s development of an irrigating agriculture which kept the demographic centre of Indo-China firmly in theirzone. Of the 2’5m Indo-Chinese alive inAD 1200, the majority lived in theKhmer sphere of influence.

After 1200 the balance tipped theother way: the Viets got stronger, theKhmers got relatively weaker. TheKhmer’s poor performance is symbolized by the decline of Angkor, whichwas eventually abandoned to the jungle:

Indochina

0000000 ~ ~0 000000000U~ 0 ifl 0 ii) 0 ‘j~ 0 ifl 0

‘0 N ~ 0 000 — — — —

194 Asia Area 8’

70?at the back of it seems to lie an agricultural failure the exact nature of which isobscure, but for which the Dry ZoneSinhalese civilization affords interestingparallels (see Asia Area 7b). By the earlymodern period European travellers werementioning the Khmer Kingdom only inpassing, as a Thai or Viet satellite: bythe mid 19th century its 2m inhabitantshad become for all practical purposessubjects of the Vietnamese emperor. TheVietnamese Empire in fact contained allthe area’s 9m people except for the Imin the Laotian principalities, which werethen an adjunct of Thailand.

k. At this point the French intervened.Their piecemeal annexation of the area(1862—93) brought Indo-China intobeing as a political unit. The rate of

Man in this part of the world did notsettle down to proper agriculture untilafter 2500 BC. The innovation is associated with a movement of Malaypeoples from mainland South-East Asia

increase now became substantial, so thatby the middle of the 20th century, whenthe colonial era was drawing to itsbloody close, the number of IndoChinese had risen to 335m. And growthcontinued throughout the subsequentAmerican Vietnamese conflict, a remarkable tribute to mankind’s abilityto make love and war simultaneously.The special factor here was the spread ofpeople and rice-growing into potentiallyfertile but previously under-utilizedareas, a move that may well have beengiven added impetus by the destructionof the majority of towns and villages inthe war zone. Today there are some 55mIndo-Chinese, of whom 44m live inVietnam. Sm in the Khmer Republicand 3-25m in Laos.

1-Mm km2

into the archipelago: before this happened the population, a group ofpeoples of proto-Melanesian stock, cannot have numbered more than 100,000.

By AD I the Malay peasantry had


The only historical discussion which talks in terms offigures is that of Irene Taeuber inPopulation Index 11(1945): her estimate of4m for the Khmer empire at its height (i.e.including much of Thailand and Malaya) is probably of the right magnitude. The nextestimate is Crawfurds of 1830 52m excluding Laos (see

Primary data start with a French count in Cochin-China in 1876. followed by aquinquennial series of partial counts and estimates that only really become at allreliable in the inter-war period. The post-independence crop of censuses has beenlamentably sparse North Vietnam in 1960, Cambodia in 1962. and nothing at all asyet from South Vietnam and Laos.

8d The Malay ArchipelagoSd—I Indonesia (less West New Guinea) 1-SOm km2Sd—2 Malaysia and Singapore 0-Mm km2

5?

la?

196 Asia Areas Sc I to Sc 3

t 225?multiplied up to about 2m. This populaLion was concentrated on the southerntier of islands and in particular on Java,a state of affairs that has persisted eversince: its culture was forming in a Hindumould as Indian traders probing theislands in their search for spices broughtin their habits as well as their custom.The emergence of the Hindu Kingdomof Srivijaya, which through the earlymedieval period controlled or claimed tocontrol most of Malaya and westernIndonesia. marks the maturity of thisinitial phase in the area’s history. Alsointroduced from India at this time wasthe technique of wet rice cultivation: thissupported a further increase in thepopulation, which reached 4m by AD

1000 and 8m by AD 1500.In Indonesia as in India Hindu cul

ture was to be harshly challenged byIslam. From an enclave established atMalacca in the 14th century Moslemadventurers steadily spread eastwards;by the early 16th century they hadcreated a string of coastal sultanatesthat stretched as far as the fabled spiceislands of Tidor and Ternate. However,before these petty states could coalesceinto an Indonesian empire, indeed whilethe area was still in a state of politicaldisruption, the Europeans arrived andseized the imperial role.

The Europeans, of course, fought agreat deal among themselves and it wasonly in the early 19th century that theimperial pattern of the area was finallylaid out, with the Dutch in control ofmost of the archipelago (though notproperly in some parts until 1900) andthe British in possession of the Malaypeninsula and the northern and north

Brunei

western parts of Borneo. Well beforethis division was finally agreed thedemographic upsurge that coincideswith the appearance of the Europeanswas in full swing: the population of thearea rose by no less than a third in the18th century to reach a total of 13-Sm.The exact machinery of this rise isunrevealed; although trade flourishedunder the Europeans that was whyIhey were there it was largely traditional trade conducted in a traditionalway, and therefore had little impact onthe bulk of the population.

The 19th century brought furtherchange. The population growth of thearea accelerated, carrying the total from13-Sm to 40m; the colonial powersturned from trade to the exploitation ofnatural resources. Their methods wereinterestingly different. The Dutchenforced state-controlled production ofcoffee and spices by the inhabitants ofIndonesia themselves. The British allowed a free-for-all in the production oftin and rubber which resulted in aninflux of immigrants from the archipelago and from China which alsosupplied the region with its traders.The result is the present complex 145mpopulation of the area: a predominantlyChinese city state of 2-Sm in Singapore(where there was virtually nobody in1800, and only 22,000 people in 1900); amulti-racial nation of 12-Sm in Malaysia(46°c Malay. 43°,, Chinese, 90,, Indian);and a relatively uniform state of I 30m inIndonesia, though one in which the splitbetween the three quarters Moslempopulation and the Hindu and Christian minorities has caused great difficulties.

175

150

The MalayArchipelago

125

100

75

25

20

15

10

Brunei is a sultanate in North Borneo which has held aloof from the Malaysianfederation; it has a population of about 150,000 now, as against 20,000 at thebeginning of the century.

5

o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0‘00~~ 0100100~ o~ 0

— — — — .c,~

1975~_I

198 Asia Area Sd

Primary Sources25?

The only pre-I9th-century figure ofam’ value isa contemporary Dutch suggestion thatthe Kingdom of Mataram, covering about 80°,, of Java, had 2’5m subjects in 1630(quoted hr B. Schrieke in Indonesian Sociological Studies. Par? 2 (1957)). The firstestimates based on dicect counts were produced in the early 19th century by Raffles(Java 48,,, in 1815) arid Bleeker (Java 9-4t,s in 1845). Crai;furds figures for Malayaand Indonesia in 1830 are 035,,, and Jim respectively (see Fisher).

Froni 1849 annual official estimates exist for Indonesia, based on quinquennialassessments. The first proper census in Dutch territory was taken in 1905: there wereJbrther censuses in 1920 and 1930 but of these on!;’ 1930 Lc really reliable. TheIndonesians themselves hare counted their population in 1961 and 1971. in the Britisharea there were reliable censuses from 1901 on.

Bibliography

For Malaysia as a whole there is a most usefid suri’et- by T. G. McGee in Wan Gunguni(cd). Malaysia: A Survey (1964). For North Borneo in particular see The Populationof Borneo k; L. W. Jonas (1966).

The basic discussion of the sources and problems of Indonesian demographic history(both of which are triany) is the book by Widjojo Nitisastro, Population Trends inIndonesia (1970). For a less diffident approach to the dirty business ofestimating totalpopulation one needs to turn to the brief discussion hr • das Gupta. and to the article b;B. Peper in Population Studies 24 (I) 1970.

The original inhabitants of thePhilippines were the negritos. a race ofpygmies who get their name from theirsuperficially negroid features: there arecurrently about 10—20000 of them andit is unlikely there were ever manymore. The first Filipinos arrived IromIndonesia around 2500 Bc; more followed in the course of the centuries untilby AD 1000 the newcomers hadcolonized all the important islands. Atthis stage the overall density was stillvery low, and the figure for totalpopulation no more than 0-l--O’2m inall.

Until the 16th century the Philippinesremained unknown to the world atlarge: then the Filipinos suddenly round

themselves being fought over bySpaniards from Mexico and Moslemsthe Mows from Borneo. (The islandsare named after the Spanish king of thetime, Philip II of Armada fame. TheSpanish are also responsible fbr callingthe Moslems Moros. meaning Moors.)The Moros arrived a little ahead of theSpanish. but, except in the case of themost southerly islands, Mindanao andJob, their hold was never more thantenuous: faced with the superiorweaponry of the conquistadors theywere soon forced to retreat to thesestrongholds, leaving the rest of thearchipelago to the rule of Spain and themissionary activities of her priests.

During the course of the 16th century

200?

8e The Philippines

00000000b~ 0 10 0 0 0 0 0CD t Q 0

—( ‘‘ — —

1975—a

200 Asia Areas Sd—I atid 8d—2

the population of the Philippines passedthrough the 0’5—O75m band and by1800 steady growth of the order of 100°,,a century had brought the total to 25m.In the 19th century the pace quickened.the population doubling each fifty years:in the first half of the 20th century itmore than doubled, reaching 20m in1950. In the last twenty-five years therate of growth has become truly hair-


raising, the increase from 1950 (20m) to1975 (42m) being over I00°~.

Thanks to the long occupation bySpain (1565 1898) and the shorter occupation by the USA (1898 1945) theFilipinos are now overwhelminglyChristian (9O°~), indeed overwhelminglyRoman Catholic (80°c). The Moros ofMindanao and Job constitute the majorpart of the remaining 1000.

During the 19th century the Spanish produced reasonably reliable esii,iiateS of thepopulation under their control, which anioun ted to about 9O°~ of i/ic whole. The USauthorities instituted a proper census in 1903: five more have been held at irregularintervals since. For the lustorical data see Irene Taeuber ‘s article on p. 97 of the 1960issue of Population Index.

--

o — 0 0 0 § 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000)00)00)00)000

~ 00 0 — .1 —0 1975—’

Asia Area Sc

Part Three

Africa

Fig. 3.1 Africa. subdivision info areas

I THE MAGHREBMoroccoAlgeriaTunisiaLIBYAEGYPTETHIOPIA

5 SOMALIA6 THE SUDAN7 THE SAHEL STATES

(Mauritania. Mali. Niger andChad)WEST AFRICAGuineaNigeriaEQUATORIA ZAIREANGOLAEquatoria2ZaireAngolaEAST AFRICA

lOa UgandalOb KenyalOc TanzanialOd Rwanda and BurundiII SOUTH-CENTRAL

AFRICAIla ZambialIb RhodesialIc Malawi12 MOZAMBIQUE13 SOUTHERN AFRICA13a The Union of South Africa.

Swaziland and Lesotho13b Namibia and Botswana14 THE ISLANDS OF THE

WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN14a Madagascar14b The ComorosI4c Reunion‘Id Mauritius

14 The Islandsof the WesternIndian Ocean

I. Senegal. Gambia. Guinea-Bissau. Guinea.Conakry. Sierra Leone. Liberia. Ivory CoastUpper Volta, Ghana. Togo and Benin

IalbIc234

*0

—V

8

88aSb9

9a9b9c10

2. Cameroon. Central African Republic. Equatorial Guinea. Gabon and Congo-Branaville

AFRICA: OVERVIEW30m km2(of which about 9m km’ is desert)

The north of Africa has always belonged to the Mediterranean world. Itsinhabitants, the Berbers and Egyptians, are ‘whites’ and their history ispart of the European Near-Eastern culture complex. South of the Saharalies what the Arabs call ‘Bilad-as-Sudan’, ‘the land of the blacks’, a quitedifferent world, with a unique culture and ethnography. Until earlymodern times contacts between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the OldWorld were tenuous in the extreme: black Africa’s history unfolded in itsown way and in its own time.

Nowadays, ‘black’ is almost synonymous with ‘Negro’ but originally thesub-Saharan area was divided into four quite different black races theNegroes, Nilo-Saharans, Pygmies and Bushmen. Geographically thedivision was roughly equal. The Negroes lived in the bush and forestcountry of the west, the Nilo-Saharans in the present-day Sudan and in theSahel, the scrub zone south of the Sahara. The Pygmies lived in the tropicalrain forest of the Zaire (Congo) basin and the Bushmen ranged acrosseastern and southern Africa. Besides these four ‘black’ peoples and the‘whites’ of the north, Africa contained a fifth race in the Cushitic peoples ofEthiopia and the Horn of Africa. Members of the same ‘Hamitic’ linguisticdivision of the white race as the Berbers and Egyptians, they are moreblack than white to look at today and, as the geographical distinctionbetween north and sub-Saharan Africa is less clear-cut in this part ofAfrica than elsewhere, it is reasonable to regard the Cushites as ‘intermediate’ in both the ethnic and the geographical sense. Altogether then wehave five groups dividing the continent between them in the post-Glacialbut pre-agricultural era. We can estimate their populations during thatperiod as follows:

Berbers and Egyptians 100,000Cushites 100,000Nilo-Saharans 250,000Negroes 250,000Pygmies 200,000Bushmen 350,000

1,250,000

Africa

B—--0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 ~o 0 0 0 0 Ifl

— — — _joJ

1975

Fig. 3.2 Africa, continental total 207

Sometime around the 7th millennium BC agriculture was introduced intoAfrica from the Near East. The introduction via the continent’s land connection with the Near East meant that the first African country to experience the ~neoIithic revolution’ was Egypt and that it was along the strip ofland watered by the lower Nile that African population densities first roseabove the very low levels characteristic of the hunting and gathering stageof human development in the range 001—01 per km2 to reach figures ofI or more per km2. In fact, relatively soon they were much higher thanthat, for Egypt has no reliable rainfall and agriculture there has to rely onirrigation, a style of cultivation that both requires and sustains largepopulations. Where contemporary neolithic societies in Europe tookthousands of years to increase their overall densities from I or 2 per km2 to3 or 4 per km2. the Egyptians had reached a density of 10 per km2 ofhabitable terrain as early as the opening century of the 4th millennium BC

and by 3000 nc were living at densities of around 20 per km2. This levelcorresponds to a population of a million for the country as a whole andprovides the demographic basis for the emergence of Egypt as a kingdomthe world’s first political unit of significant size.

At this point in time— the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC thedemographic contrast between Egypt and the rest of Africa is about asstriking as could be. In no other part of the continent is there any knowledge of agriculture at all. On the one hand we have a million Egyptianscrowding the banks of the Nile, on the other family-size bands of huntersscattered across a vast landscape in a distribution so sparse that the totalnumber amounts only to a million and a bit. Nearly half the population ofAfrica lives in Egypt, tills its fields and obeys Pharaoh.

For the next two thousand years Egypt continued to hold a cultural anddemographic position way in advance of all the other African societies. By1000 BC the total population of the continent had increased to more than65m. hut with 3m living along the lower Nile the Egyptian share remainednear 40°c. The important change in the population pattern was a relativestrengthening of the Negro and Nilo-Saharan positions. The Negroes weremaking the first moves towards the development of a genuine agricultureand their success in this was marked by a rise in their numbers to a total ofIm. The Nilo-Saharans did even better, but then the pastoral way of lifethat was to be their characteristic mode of development being extensiverather than intensive, they approached their maxima of range and totalnumbers more rapidly than did the relatively sedentary Negroes. The loserswere the Pygmies and Bushmen, who showed no advance on theirmesolithic traditions and whose populations consequently remained static.

The middle centuries of the last millennium BC brought two new peoplesto Africa: the Phoenicians (Lebanese) who colonized Tunisia andTripolitania and the Greeks who settled in Cyrenaica. The arrival of the

208

original Carthaginians’ civilizing mission through to completion. In AD 200present-day Algeria and Tunisia contained a thriving peasantry, thenomadic way of life was restricted to the tribes of the desert fringe and thetotal population was of the order of 4m. Add 0~5m for Libya and Sm forEgypt, subtract 05m for the untamed nomads, and you have a peak figureof 9m for Rome’s North African provinces. This amounts to nearly halfthe pan-African total of 20m.

The light of Mediterranean civilization never penetrated very far intoAfrica. Beyond the Roman frontier the only states that a classical geographer could have marked on his map were the Kingdoms of Axum (Eritrea)and Nubia (in the Sudan). The ruling elite of these two small areas hadacquired a precarious literacy which enabled them to send the occasionalembassy to the the imperial court and receive honorific letters and eventually Christian missionaries in return. The inhabitants of the rest of thecontinent were as unknown to contemporary science as they were unheeding of it.

This is not to say that there was nothing happening in black Africa. Farfrom it. The Negroes were on the move and one of Africa’s most importanttransformations was under way. Of the 5 million Negroes alive in AD 200nearly 2m were living outside the traditional Negro homeland in thenewly colonized territories of Equatoria, Zaire and East Africa. The migration had begun as a tentative infiltration eastward from Nigeria into theCameroons early on in the last pre-Christian millennium; it gained momentum in the last pre-Christian centuries when the Negro van pushedeastward across the territories that now constitute the Central AfricanRepublic, northern Zaire and Uganda. Finally some time before AD 500the Negroes reached the east coast of the continent. Possessors of an IronAge technology and a productive agriculture, they outclassed the aborigines so completely that there was no significant opposition to theiradvance. The Pygmies withdrew into the depths of their forests, theBushmen retreated southward. The racial landscape of sub-Saharan Africabecame almost purely Negro indeed because the expansion had been sorapid the whole newly acquired area was peopled by Negroes speakinglanguages of the same Bantu’ type.

The Nilo-Saharans did contest the Negro advance and the fact that thenorthern limit of the Bantu-speaking peoples drops away southward as ittraverses the continent from west to east reflects the pressure of NibSaharan pastoralists. Their drive south from the Sudan, which seems tohave begun at much the same time as the Negroes’ eastward movement,succeeded best in East Africa, where the terrain favours the pastoral style.Famous cattle-herding tribes like the Masai of Kenya and the Tutsi of

Fig. 3.4 Africa in AD 400

Rwanda and Burundi represent later eddies in this Nilo-Saharan crosscurrent which continued to bring new peoples into the area until the beginning of colonial times.

This is to run far ahead of ourselves. In the early 3rd century AD theNegro domination of sub-Saharan Africa was foreshadowed rather thanachieved and, looking at the continent as a whole, the weight of populationstill lay north not south of the Sahara.

The military and economic crisis which shook the Roman world in thesecond half of the 3rd century AD marks the beginning of the end of (hissituation. The population of North Africa. like all other local populationswithin the Roman Empire. began to decline and the drop in numbers continued for more than four centuries. It bottomed out only when numbers

Roma ptie,

III

I

N0bIc)

Eritrea

K.a

0

BANTU~1

N’Hamites

I~~1 Negroes

Nilo-Saharans— Bushmen

Mabagasay

1—fromIndonesia

210 211

were down to two thirds of the peak figure (6m In AD 600 as against95m in AD 200). During the same period the sub-Saharan population canbe reckoned to have increased from something under 9m to something nearI 3m. The shift in the continent’s centre of gravity that these figures indicateis striking: it matters little whether the figures for the Horn (Im Ifl AD 200.l5m in AD 600) are added to the North African total (a procedure that canbe justified culturally) or. as seems more sensible, kept in a separatecategory.

The Arab conquest of the 7th century AD opened a new and morecheerful chapter in North Africa’s history. During much of the 8th centurythe Maghreb, Libya and Egypt were contented provinces of the caliphateand the moribund classical society of the region was transformed andinvigorated by the preaching of Islam. Population figures rose again, edging just above the classical peak by the year 1000. This enabled NorthAfrica to maintain its end of the North African: sub-Saharan ratio thatwas now fluctuating around the I :2 level. But then Islam too lost impetus.The population totals for the Maghreb, Libya and Egypt slipped back to85m and stayed there. This brought the North African : sub-Saharan ratiodown to I : 3 (by 1200) and then 1:4 (by 1400). Islam had its successes ofconquest and conversion Somalia, the Sudan and much of the Sahel zonebecame Mohammedan during this period but in the lands where it hadbeen longer established it settled down to a rather uninspired provincialroutine. The story of classical civilization appeared to be repeating itself.

*

The spread of Islam to lands south of the Sahara shows that the desert wasno longer the barrier it had been earlier. Following the introduction of thecamel in classical times the Berbers became steadily more confident in theirjourneyings: by the 13th century they were regularly making the journeyfrom Sijilmasa on the south side of the Atlas to Timbuctoo on the Nigerand back, and soon after they began to make use of a parallel routebetween Tripoli and Lake Chad. At the same time Arab seamen sailing theeast coast were able to outflank the desert and establish a chain of tradingstations that stretched as far south as Mozambique (Fig. 3.5). Theseroutes and the two ways known to the ancients, the Nile and Red Searoutes to Nubia and Eritrea were all used by Arab slavers, and during themedieval period the traffic in black slaves, which had begun in a small,irregular way with the Egyptian conquest of Nubia in the 2nd millenniumBC, became a relatively steady flow. The numbers involved were small:none of the five Arab routes shown in Fig. 3.5 can have a capacity of morethan 1,000 a year or so and the actual average achieved must have beenwell below this something of the order of 1,000 a year for all five

Fig. 3.5 The slave trade in Africa in medieval times. Br i/ic end of’the 1St/i centurythere were six slaving routes in operat ion. 1110 directly across the Sahara. tile othersusing the Nile, the Red Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts. The earlier ofthe t,i’o trans-Saharan routes (1 and 2) seern.c to hare been the western one. Far olderthan cit/icr “as tile Nile route (3) which by ,nedieval limes had several cross—connections with the Red Sea traffic (4). The east-coast route (5) ,rhich reached as farsouth as Mozambique. was probably the tilost profitable: from its northern terminus atOman there “as considerable re-export trade to Iran and India. The sixth route onlycame into use in the closing decades of the ,nedieral period when the Portuguese sailedthe ‘test coast asfar south as the Gulfof Guitiea and started to ship sla.’csfroni thereto Europe

213

together. This is of no numerical significance in relation to a sub-Saharanpopulation of 30m.

In the second half of the 15th century two things happened which wereto lead to a transformation of the slave trade: the Portuguese opened up awest-coast route that put Europe in direct contact with black Africa, andColumbus discovered the New World. As colonization of the Americasproceeded, the demand for slave labour rose beyond anything experiencedbefore, and as the native Amerindian populations melted away under the impact of defeat, disease and the savageries imposed on them, so the importof Negro slaves became the only way of meeting this demand. The number shipped from Africa across the Atlantic rose from a modest 1,000a year at the beginning of the 16th century to an average of 5,000 a year bythe century’s end. And this was only a beginning. In the course of the 17thcentury the Dutch brought their business skills to bear on the slave trade,boosting the number carried per year to 30.000 by 1700. In the 18th century the British took the lead and the figures mounted again, finally levelling off at about 75,000 per annum in the period 1750 1800. The numberof Negroes embarked for the ‘middle passage’ the month-long voyageacross the Atlantic which was made in conditions of such overcrowdingand horror that a mortality of 15°, was considered average was near thelOm mark by the year 1800. Such had been the expansion of the trade that8m out of the lOm had been shipped across in the course of the 18thcentury.

The demographic effects of the Atlantic slave trade have been muchdebated. Simple arithmetic shows that it is only in the 18th century thatthere is any case for it having an adverse effect on African populationlevels and that even then it can have hardly have done more than slow therate of increase of a sub-Saharan total that was around 50m. It is in factarguable that, in a society where numbers pressed so hard on resources andwhere mortality was so high, the losses could be so rapidly compensatedfor that the slave trade, even at its peak rate, can have had no effect onAfrican numbers at all. Some have even gone further. Any trade, they say,is better than none and the introduction of manioc and maize to the continent in the 16th century so improved native diet that population growthactually accelerated during the heyday of the slave trade. It is very difficultto come to any positive conclusions, particularly as we have no knowledgeat all of such factors as whether contact with Europe brought new diseasesas well as new foods. The fair conclusion would seem to be that theAtlantic slave trade was of great importance to the demography of theAmericas but of no lasting quantitative significance to Africa.

In the late 18th century European opinion moved against slavery: in theearly 19th century the trade in slaves was prohibited and in the second halfof the century the prohibition was made effective. The routes that stayed in

business longest were the ancient Arab ones across the Sahara and alongthe east coast, which actually expanded as the others shut own (Fig. 3.7).Rates of export of 20,000 a year were attained on some of these routesand the anti-slavery propagandists talked of areas of total depopulationthroughout the eastern half of Africa. But this final phase of the slave tradewas too short-lived to have any such effect: by the late I870s the traffic hadbeen reduced to insignificant levels everywhere and the Europeans wereable to congratulate themselves on having eradicated a trade so self-evidently vile that it was difficult to remember that, a mere century before,they had been its most zealous practitioners.

The suppression of the slave trade was only one aspect of Europe’s

Fig. 3.6 The s/are trade in Africa 1500—1810. During thus period Europeans tooknear/i hOrn Negroesfroin sub-Sahara,, Africa, a/h bui aJèir of thetti being shippedfrorni/ic Atlantic coast to the Americas. The Arabs look just o’er In:

214 215

increasing concern with Africa during the 19th century: the exploration ofthe interior and the establishment of protectorates and spheres of influencewere more sinister signs of the same thing. Finally in a flurry of diplomaticand military activity known as ‘the scramble for Africa’ the Europeansmoved in as masters. The British, the world’s most accomplished imperialists, got the lion’s share: by the end of Queen Victoria’s reign (1901) 50mAfricans nearly half the continental total of I lOm had been added tothe roll call of her subjects. By contrast her grandson the Kaiser obtaineda mere lOm. And these he soon lost, for during the First World War the

British, French and Belgians divided Germany’s African Empire betweenthem. As a result (he British share passed 50’, and the French share rosefrom just under to just over 25°,,. The remainder of the continent’s population was split between Belgium (9’,), Portugal (6°,) and Italy (I’,, rising to6°, with the conquest of Abyssinia in 1935).

Colonization was a noticeable but by no means dominating feature ofthe colonial era. Mussolini settled 100,000 Italians in Libya in an attemptto create an African province for his new Roman empire, but most of theinflow was much less organized than this. The foreign communities inMorocco, Tunisia and Egypt, for example. derived from the Europeancountries with a Mediterranean coast rather than specifically from theoccupying power. And though temporarily powerful these groups werealways numerically small. The peak numbers of foreigners in Egyptamounted to only 02m, in Morocco to 05m and in Tunisia to 025m.These figures all shrank to near zero within a short time of the hostcountry’s achieving independence. Also eliminated, though only after avicious struggle, was the one community that did build up to a respectablesize the French settlement in Algeria, which at its apogee in the 1950s wasover a million strong.

Most of sub-Saharan Africa remained free of this sort of intrusion. Afew British settled in east Africa during the heyday of imperial power butthey nearly all left when the region became self-governing again. TheIndians whom the British had brought in to run this sector of their empiremostly stayed. In the l960s they numbered some 0-4m but Uganda expelledits contingent (VIm) in 1972 and it seems only a matter of time beforeKenya and Tanzania follow suit. British and Indians also moved intosouthern Africa, this time in much greater numbers. As southern Africaalready contained a sizable Boer (Dutch) and Coloured (Dutch-Hottentot)population this became the one area south of the Sahara in which thepopulation was not overwhelmingly black. At present there are 4lmwhites, 075m Asians, 23m coloured and l8m blacks in the Union of SouthAfrica. Political power is 100°, in the hands of the white community whichensures its immediate future. In the long run, however, it is difficult to seethis monopoly being maintained and once it is lost the days of the whiteman in southern Africa must be numbered. The similar regime establishedby the 02m white settlers in Rhodesia appears in a very shaky statealready.

If sub-Saharan Africa is likely to have solved its racial problems bybecoming homogeneously black by the end of the century it is unlikely tohave solved its other population problem the present explosive rate ofgrowth. The rate of increase has accelerated in this century from 25°,, in thefirst quarter to 45°, in the second and 100°, in the third. The corresponding figures for the absolute increase in numbers are 20m, 45m and l4Om. If

Fig. 3.7 The slave trade in Africa 1810—80. The official our/airing of ripe slave tradeat the beginning oft/se 19th century wasfbrfrom being the end of the traffic. Europeanslavers shipped another 235m black Africansfrom the continent bet Keen 1810 arid thenuddie decades of Ike century ,,‘hen ike closure of the Brazilian and Cuban markersfinally put a stop to the Atlantic trade. The Arab slavers remained in business/branother quarter of a century after that: they took about 13Sni s/arc’s during the periodas a irhole

2)6 2)7

the rate of increase is no more than maintained in the fourth quarteranother 250m people will be added to the population of sub-SaharanAfrica, a daunting prospect for an area that already faces terrible problemsof poverty.

Not that black Africa is overpopulated in density terms. It could easilyaccommodate several times its present population, the more so as it is stillat an early stage of urbanization. But the achievement of a better life for itspeople depends on per capita investment levels that are difficult enough toachieve at present and could prove impossible to realize while the rate ofincrease remains geometric.

The hope is that both here and elsewhere in Africa the rates begin to fallin the not too distant future and that the continent’s population in the year2000 is below rather than above the expected 700m.

AFRICA AREA 1 The Mag’hreb31m km’

(&Sm km2 productive)

The Maghreb the West is the Arab word for the three states in the north-westcorner of Africa Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Only the Im km’ in the maritimeprovinces of the Maghreb are habitable: the interior 2m km2 are desert supportingthe scantiest of populations — currently less than one person per 2 km2.

The individual figures for total area and productive area (roughly 60% of thisbeing pasture and only 30% arabic) are as follows:

O60m km’

2-34m km2034m km’2OOni km2

Ic Tunisia O-16m km2

In an ecological sense the only division of importance is between Morocco, thenorthern departments of Algeria and Tunisia on the one hand, and the Saharandepartments of Algeria on the other.

The prehistoric Maghreb was a backwater. It had its share of palaeolithichunters a few thousand and inneolithic times a scattering of Berberpastoralists and cultivators a fewhundred thousand but it remainedstuck at a simple neolithic level duringthe whole of the period when the otherMediterranean communities were evolving through the Bronze and Iron Ages.At the beginning of the last millenniumBC, when Phoenician seamen from theLebanon started 10 explore the NorthAfrican coast, they found they werestepping from their boats into a StoneAge world.

At first they didn’t step far. Thoughthey planted colonies all along theTunisian coast it was several centuriesbefore they turned their attention to theinterior, and only after the variouscolonies had accepted the leadership ofthe most successful of their number,Carthage, that they established directcontrol over the northern half ofTunisia. When the Romans overthrewCarthage in 146 BC this area became thenucleus of the Roman province ofAfrica.

At the time of the laP of Carthagethere were perhaps 100,000 Phoeniciansand 500,000 Berbers in Tunisia plus

In Morocco

lb AlgeriaNorthern departmentsSaharan departments

(O-22m km2 productive)

(021m km1 productive)

(O’07m km’ productive)

219

another 2-Sm Berbers in the rest ofNorth Africa. With the establishmentof the pus roinana numbers began toincrease. Tunisia (the province ofAfrica) may well have had a populationof Im at the high point of the classicalperiod in the early 3rd century AD. WestAlgeria (Numidia) was equally wellsettled by then, though east Algeria(Mauretania Caesarensis) had a lowerdensity and the total for Algeria as awhole is unlikely to have been morethan 2m. As for Morocco. its development had barely begun: only ihe northern part (Mauretania Tingitania) withhalf the area’s populaton of Im wasunder Roman rule.

The Roman period had started offwith a significant shift from pastoralismto settled agriculture. In the troubledtimes before and after the fall of theWestern Empire the pendulum swungback. The population of the area consequently fell sharply, perhaps below3m. After the Arab conquest at the endof ihe 7th century there was a slowrecovery. By AD 1000 the populations ofAlgeria and Tunisia had regained theirclassical level while that of Morocco hadclimbed well beyond its previous best.We can estimate the total for theMaghreb at around Sm. roughlydistributed between Morocco, Algeriaand Tunisia on a 2: 2: I formula.

For the next 800 years there was littlechange. The pendulum swung back towards pastoralism again in the middle ofthe 11th century with the invasion of iheHilali bedouin from Arabia. Recoveryin the 13th century was offset by theBlack Death in the 14th and the

recovery from this disaster was completed only in the mid 16th century, justin time to be negated by the generalMediterranean economic recession ofthe mid 17th century. By 1800 theMaghreb had got stuck again: amedieval society in a modern world,stagnating in every sense. Populationwas around 6m, of which Tunisia hadabout 0-8m and Algeria and Moroccoabout 2-6m apiece.

Modern times began with the arrivalof the French. In 1830 a French expeditionary force landed in Algeria andby 1857 the inhabited part of thecountry was under French control. Aprotectorate over Tunisia followed in1881 and in 1912 a Franco-Spanishprotectorate over Morocco. Europeanimperialism had two important resultsthe build-up of a segregated populationof European colonists and the creationof the conditions necessary for a demographic take-off.

The first was a temporary phenomenon. By 1900 there were about0’75m colonists (O-65m in Algeria) andin 1950 there were nearly l’75m (Im inAlgeria), but by 1975 almost all had leftand the few who did remain had beenintegrated. Also gone by 1975 (in thiscase to Israel) was Morocco’s Jewishminority which had numbered 0’2m in1925. The demographic revolution onthe other hand has gathered speed sincethe European exodus. As is apparentfrom the graph the population of theMaghreb has a very high rate of growthindeed and on preseni performancenumbers will be around 70m by the year2000.

aIC

aa

a

2

/70

/ The Maghreb

Rabat

MOROCCO/ la

Algiers Carthage

~TU~s

ALGERIAlb

SAHARA

// ‘I

10

8

64

2Primary Sources and Bibliography

There tc real!,’ nothing on whir/i to base anj caku/avion.c before the 19th century.* Be/or/i thought there Here per/laps 3 or 4i,, people in the Maghreh by 200 ac and

,??ore than 5,,, in A D I (his actualfigure is 6t;i bug tins includes Tripohitania). Russell

Africa Area /

00—08008000000000000000OOflOr- (0 01 0Ca — — ‘-‘ — .01

‘975_J220

has suggested something over 4tn tfl AD 1, which seems preferable, but he then goes onto propose a truly catastrophic drop to between It;i and 2m at the beginning of theDark Ages and keeps Ins estimate at tins level until AD 1400. His figure for 1500, amore reasonable 3’Sm. is accepted by Braudel.

Nineteenth-century and later data are available as follows.’

Algeria. Vie French instituted a quinquennial census in 1856. The series is complete to1936, since when thcre hai’e been censuses in 1948, 1954, 1960 and 1966. The 19th-century figures are certainly underesti,nates and ,,eed upward adjustment. The firs?figures for the Sahoran departments (Algérie du Sud) werc returned only in 1939(06,,,). All the significant data are to he found in an article by D. Maison inPopulation (Paris, 1973, p. 1079) and most of the,,, in K. Suttop,s contribution to* Clarke and Fisher. -

Tunisia. There ore accurate Otton,an esthnates available Iron, 1844 onwards: a quit,quennial census bras instituted by the French in 1921 (decennial since 1936). The figuresare hi John Clarke’s contribution to * Clarke and Fisher,

Morocco. Reliable esthnates are restricted to this century. 1,1 the inter-war period theFrench started a quinquennial census in their zone (1921 36) and the Spanish made anestitnate of the population in theirs (1930). Much the sa,ne situation obtained in theinm,ediate post-war period (French-zone censuses in 1947 and 1951 2, Spanish—zonecensus in 1950). The first nationwide census bias held in 1960 after Morocco hodobtained her independence: a second follo;i’ed in 1971.

30?

Africa Areas Ia—c

35

Libya is a desert state where cultivationand animal husbandry are possible onlyin the two coastal strips known asTripolitania and Cyrenaica. Up until the6th century BC a few thousand Berbersconstituted the entire population of thisempty country: then Tripolitania wascolonized by the Phoenicians andCyrenaica by the Greeks. Tripolitania,as its name implies, counted three cities,and Cyrenaica, as is indicated by itsalternative title of Pentapolis, five, butthe Greek foundations were certainlysmaller than the Phoenician and asTripolitania contains two thirds of thecountry’s productive land it probablycontained a similar proportion of thepopulation. By Roman times this meanssome O-35m out of a total of 0-Sm.

Population fell steeply with the decline in imperial fortunes in the 4th and5th centuries and it did not recover untilafter the Muslim conquest of the 7thcentury AD. The first wave of Arabsbrought a flush of prosperity to theregion: Arabs move more readily by

caravan than by ship and Libya benefited from the traffic between Egypt andthe Maghreb. But the second wave ofArabs the invasion of the Hilalibedouin was entirely destructive: theeconomy dwindled to the simplest sortof goat herding and at its low point thepopulation cannot have been more than0-25m. During the rest of the premodern period there was a slowrecovery, perhaps accelerating duringthe course of the 19th century towards afinal figure of O-75m,

The Italian occupation (1911—42)brought a colonization effort that at itspeak added 100,000 people to thecountry’s total. All these settlers wereexpelled after the liberation of thecountry during the Second World War.The newly independent country soonfelt the full force of the population explosion and it has been fortunate tohave the oil revenues to support apopulation that has more than doubledbetween 1950 (Im) and 1975 (2-Sm).


AFRICA AREA 2 LibyaP76m km’

(O-04m km’ productive)Libya

-

Tripoli

SAHARA

* Be/och ‘s estimate of 0-Sin for Cyrenaica seems far too/sigh, imp/ring ash (toes a total

for Libya of a: least 1-25,,,. * RusselLc 02,,, Cyrenaic-ans has a “ore reasonable lookto it. Of course, there are no real data to go on until modern rinses. By i/it’ end of i/se19th cern ury the Turks were producing estimates ofaround Ini, probably erring on thehigh side because the Italian enumerations of /93/ and /936 turned up figures of only0- 7tn and O-75n,. B;’ 1950 the official estimates were hack to mi again. Thefirs? cetisus‘las taken in 1954. the second in 1966 and the i/i/rd in 1973.

There c’s-c good disc’ussion.c O~’ the contemporafl- period its oil as-tic/c’ hi C’, L. Fujiin Populalion Sludics 1949 (p. 1) antI in R, 6. Hctrtlei’ v contrihution to * C’lct,keand F/sIte,’,

224

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Q 0 0 0 0 0 0o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 tO 0 10 o to o iO 0 to 0

00 — — — 0≥

1975

AJrica A ret, 2

Egypt is a desert country of which a thinsnake-like strip less than 500 of thewhole is watered and brought to lifeby the Nile. The body of the snake isknown as Upper Egypt: it has a width ofonly a few kilometres. The triangularhead, Lower Egypt, is formed by thedelta of the Nile: in its short length itcontains as much productive land as allUpper Egypt.

One feature of the delta is an extensive spread of marshes. These must haveprovided a happy hunting ground forprimitive man and because of themLower Egypt probably supported themajority of the 25,000 inhabitants onecan postulate for the country as a wholein late mesolithic times. With the arrivalof the first farmers about 6000 ac thependulum will have swung in favour ofUpper Egypt. Here irrigation techniquescould be practised in their most simpleform and here the village-based economy that has characterized Egypt eversince will have achieved its first flowering. Population now grew steadily.reaching 100,000 in about 5000 Bc and250,000 in 4000 BC: it was on the millionmark in 3000 Bc when the UpperEgyptian King Menes conquered thedelta and became Pharaoh of all Egypt.

Menes founded the first in the longsuccession of dynasties that ruled theNile valley in the centuries beforeChrist. During the initial phase, knownto scholarship as the Old Kingdom andlasting through most of the 3rd millennium BC, the population increased fromIm to 2m; during the Middle Kingdom

(2100 1700 BC) from 2m to 25m. A newpeak was reached in the New Kingdomor Empire period (1600—1200 BC) duringwhich the Pharaohs conquered and heldPalestine and part of the Sudan. Indemographic terms these provinceswere not very important: Nubia (theSudanese province) contained at themost 100,000 people and Palestine nomore than 250,000, figures that have tobe compared with the 3m in Egyptproper. Internal development was nowfocused on the delta: the creation thereof four new nomes (administrativedistricts) brings Upper and Lower Egyptinto balance at twenty-two and twentynomes respectively.

During the last millennium ec the irregular increase of the Egyptian peasantry slowed: in the first two centuriesAD it ceased altogether. The availableland was being exploited as fully as waspossible with the available techniques,and at about Sm the population reacheda maximum that was not exceeded untilmodern times. Plague, famine and warwill, of course, have reduced the population below this level from time to timeand during particularly bad spells theeconomic collapse of the 4th centuryAD, the plagues of the 7th and 14th centuries and the stagnation in the laststage of Ottoman rule the populationmust have been nearer 3m than Sm. Butfor something near 3,000 years the sizeof the Egyptian population remainedwithin these relatively narrow limits.Christianity came and went; Islam cameand stayed; the fellahin tilled the fields,

AFRICA AREA S Egypt1-Om km’(cultivated area 35,000 km’)

Egypt

0Q,i 0000000000000000000000 fl 000000000 0~) 0 ~fl 0 l~ 0 in o inO

cc t- ~ m 000 ,-, — —

1975—i

226 Africa Area 3

and the economy, like the pyramids,remained unchanging.

Egypt was shaken out of its medievaltorpor by the arrival of Napoleon in1799. In the first half of the 19th centurynumbers rose from 3’5m to 5-Sm: in thesecond half the introduction of perennial irrigation, the entry into the worldcotton market and the opening of theSuez Canal provided the economic basisfor an even faster rate of increase, withthe lOm mark being reached in 1900.

In the 20th century the story has beenless satisfactory. In the first half thenumber of Egyptians exactly doubled(to 20m) but the Egyptian economy didnot do so well: as a result living standards dropped. In the period 1950—75both demographic and economicgrowth accelerated, but whereas thepopulation gains were steady and thefinal figure 37m impressive by anystandard, the economic performancewas more erratic. And though the

Primary Sources

increase in Arab oil revenues and theprospect of peaceful coexistence withIsrael offer the hope of a better finalquarter to the century, the absolute rateof increase now running at over a million a year is so high that it is difficultto be very optimistic. By the year 2000the Egyptian government will have toprovide food and jobs for a populationthat is unlikely to total less than bOmand could well be tOm more.

The Egyptians are a remarkablyhomogeneous people, the only important division being between Christians(10”,,) and Moslems (90°,,). TheChristians are all of the native Copticvariety: the European community,which built up to a strength of 0-15m inthe colonial era, is now down to nothing. To either side of the Nile, in thewestern and eastern deserts, there are afew bedouin: once they may have numbered 0-Im but today the total is certainly less than this.

No country is easier to suri’c’r thati Egypt. no people easier to count, and records thatirouid he as purest gold to tile historical demographer hate certainly been comptiedsitu-c the clays of Menes. Unfrrtztnately. nothing in the nay of a total survives from tilecountry :~ cant’ dat’s. except a tradition, recorded by various classical Inst orians. thatPharaontc’ Egypt hat’ a population of 7m. This figure is too high. Diodor,ts, quotingHec’atae,ts of Abcle,-c, gil-es a figure of 3m fi,r 300 it C (Diodorus 1 31,- for the disputeabout the exact te.’-t see * Beloeh. p. 256) and it is exceedingly unlikely that thepopulation had been signijcantly greater at an) earlier date.

Thete are no primary data /br the medieval or early modern periods, the next figureworth discussion being the estimate of 2-Stu produced hi’ the Fretu-h savants who cameto Egypt with Napoleon in 1799. In 1848 the country held its first cetisus: after allowingfbr c-otisiderahle ,tt,deret,u,neration the result nas published as 4-Sm. The correctiontieecled in the case of the tie.vt (1882) census, a 12°,, add’t,on to the rat’ total of 6-8m,‘-as less substantial hut it is only tiith the c-etlsu.c of 1897, the first itl the decennial

se,’ies instituted by the British authorities. thctt it-c i-each firm groutid.The decennial censuses “crc held on schedule up to 1957 hut the c-ensu.s’for that rear

had to he repeated in 1960 because of uncertainties ititroduced i,j the hostilities ti’ithis’rctel. There has only been one census sitlce. held it, 1966,so that there is sonic doubtas to the exact size of the present (1975) populatioti.

228

Bibliography

There is an archaeologist :~ estimate of tlte populatioti of’predytiastic Upper Egypt in anarticle by Karl Butzer in Science, VoL 132. p. 1616. For the Pharaonic period Sir AlanGardiner (Egypt of the Pharaohs (1961), p. 28 n) and W. F. Alhright (CambridgeAncient History, 3rd edt,, Vol. 2, Part 2(1975). p. 108) both suggest figures in the 4tn—Sm area, it/isle * Beloch thinks ofmt as a peak first reached in Rotnan times, • Russellbelieves the troughs tt’ent as low as 2m in the Dark Ages, which seems unduly pessitnistie. For the suggestion that the ,nedieval population n-as around 3t,; see * Poliak.’ infavour of 4tn are Janet L. Ahu-Lughod (Cairo (197!), p. 51) and H. A. R. Gibh and H.Bo,i-en (Islamic Society and the West (1950), p. 209). The arguments for raising theFrench estimate of’2-Sni for 1800 are given hi’ Janet Ahu-Lughod:fbr the 19th centuryas a t,’hole we have used the growth rates suggested hi’ Gabriel Baer in an article.‘Urhanisation in Egypt 1820—1907’ (in Beginnings of Modernization in the MiddleEast, ed. W. R. Polk and R. L. Chambers (1968)) to calculate our figure for 1800 and1850.

AFRICA AREA 4 EthiopiaF2m km’

•(1O0~ arable,2O0~ pasture)

Herding and the rudiments of agriculture arrived in Ethiopia around 3000BC: as a result the population graduallyincreased from its mesolithic level ofunder 0lm to reach 02m by 1000 BC.

The majority lived in the Abyssinianhighlands, entirely cut off from the restof the world: the few who eked out aliving on the barren Red Sea coast thedistrict later known as Eritrea saw theoccasional Egyptian or Arab trader butotherwise passed their days in equalisolation.

Sometime before 500 ac, Semitesfrom Arabia crossed the Red Sea andestablished themselves as an aristocracyin Eritrea and the neighbouring districtof Tigrê. By AD I the classical geographers had become aware of a ‘King ofAxum’ ruling over this part of theworld. This kingdom, which containedperhaps 025m out of the 05mEthiopians of the time, gradually extended its frontiers until, by the 6th century AD. it was in control of most of theAbyssinian massif. The King of Axumwas even powerful enough to send anexpeditionary force to the Yemen toprotect the Christians there from persecution.

This act indicates how fervently theEthiopians had taken to Christianitysince its first introduction 200 yearsearlier. It also exposed the Ethiopiansto retaliation when their army in theYemen was defeated and, more importantly, Arabia found a religion of itsown in the teaching of the Prophet

Mohammed. The expansion of theArabs, in particular the conquest ofEgypt in the middle years of the 7th century. cut Ethiopia off from the rest ofChristendom: direct attacks over thenext few hundred years detached Eritreafrom Ethiopia and made it a province ofthe caliphate. The Ethiopians weresealed into their mountains and forgotten.

Ethiopia’s Dark Age lasted until thePortuguese rounded the Cape of GoodHope on their way to India. Theyeagerly followed up stories of aChristian King of Abyssinia, hopingthat he would turn out to be a usefulally in their struggles with the Moslemswho dominated the area: indeed theyhoped he would turn out to be PresterJohn. the fabled Christian Emperor ofthe Orient whose name made even themost powerful Moslem potentatesquake with fear. Prester John, alas,didn’t exist and the King of Abyssiniawas no substitute, He controlled most ofEthiopia and more than half the area’s2m inhabitants but his armies werehopelessly outclassed by the localMoslems who had just obtainedmuskets from the Turks. He neededPortuguese help if he was to survive,and could give nothing in return.

Abyssinia did survive, though morebecause of the failure of impetus thatcharacterized Moslem society in theearly modern period than because ofhelp rendered by fellow Christians.Indeed, as the Christians got closer

Ethiopia

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o 0 fl 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ~O 0 10 0 10 0 10 0 I0 0to 0- ~ ~ 000 — -4 — —

1975

230 Africa Area 4

some of them turned out to be more of amenace than the Moslems. In the lS8Osthe Italians established a protectorateover Eritrea, in the 1890s they began toextend this into the highlands andthough an Abyssinian victory at Adowain 1896 postponed the issue for a generation (during which Ethiopia sharedwith Liberia the distinction of beingAfrica’s only independent states), in1935 they returned. This time, thanks tobetter generalship and a bit of mustardgas, they were successful. However, amere six years later the British ejectedthem from the whole area, setting the


scene for the eventual reunion of Eritreaand Ethiopia in what was originally afederation (1952) but turned out to be afull union (1962).

Since the war Ethiopia has experienced more than its share of the problems that beset Third World countries:famine stalks the southern provincesand civil war is endemic in the north.The 2m people in the predominantlyMoslem province of Eritrea seem determined to recover their independenceand most observers expect that, in theend, they will.

Somalia

During the colonial era the Italians made regular estimates of the population ofEritrea, the firs! in 1899. the last in 1939. Their occupation of Ethiopia has too brieffor thetn to do “lore than guess at total number.c and no one sofrr has done any better.The genera/feeling is that the present officialfigures are far too high and that the totalis under rat/icr i/ian 01cr 20n,, According to the government it is 28ni.

o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0too tooo ~ 0 0 0 0 2 °

~0 o~cQ~to ~ o~ 0

— ‘~4 — — .02

P1 ~ 1975~_l

Africa Area 5 (text oi’erlcafl

AFRICA AREA 5 SomaliaO-64m km’

AFRICA AREA 6 Sudan2-Sm km2

(W24m km2 pasture,O-06m km2 arable)

Somalia is a land of desert and near-desert inhabited by nomads. The ancestors of the present-day stock ofSomali and Galla cattle-herders were inthe area by the 3rd millennium ac andby AD I there will have been about O2mof them. There were still some Bushmenaround and a few Bantu had infiltratedthe extreme south, but neither of thesepeoples made a significant contributionto the population then or now.

In the 10th century Arab traders visiting the northern coasts introduced twoelements that revolutionized Somalisociety: Islam and the horse. The Somalibegan to terrorize the Galla of thesouth, a process that ultimately resultedin many Galla moving wcstward lo

terrorize the Ethiopians. By the time thecolonial powers began to show interestin this part of Africa the Somalidominated the coast as far south as thepresent-day frontier with Kenya.

The colonial episode began in 1889with the division into Italian and Britishzones: it ended with the creation of anindependent and united Somalia in1960. During this period the populationrose from something under a million tothe present total of 3m.

French Somaliland, currently knownas ‘the French territory of the Afars andIssas’, has a population of 100.000 nowas against 50,000 at the beginning of thecentury.

Around 4000 ac the Sudanese made theIransition from food gathering to pastoralism and, in the limited areas wherecultivation is feasible, agriculture.Population quickly rose past the 100.000level, reached 250,000 in 3000 Bc and0-Sm by 2000 BC. By 1500 Bc, when thearmies of the Egyptian pharaohs beganto probe the Nile above the secondcataract, there were nearly a millionpeople in the area of the modernSudanese state. Of this area theEgyptians conquered only the Nileprovince as far south as (he fourthcataract, a strip that they called Cushand we call Nubia. It will have contained something over 10”,, of thecountrys population. i.e. around100,000 people.

The collapse of the Egyptian Empirein 1000 BC left the Nubians free tocreate a kingdom of their own and expand its frontiers. By the 6th century BCthey had conquered and organized thewhole of the central Sudan and broughtabout a third of the Sudanese undertheir rule. With the total number ofSudanese now approaching (Sm thismeant that the Kingdom of Meroe, asthe new state was known, had a population of some 0’Sm. It lasted till the 4thcentury AD, when it broke up into threesuccessor states, all of which becameofficially Christian over the next IOUyears. Christian missionaries even hadsome success in the hitherto unchartedwest, the present-day provinces ofDarfur and Kordofan. However the

whole region was soon cut off fromMediterranean Christendom by theMoslem conquest of Egypt. By AD 1000the Sudan was still Christian where itwasn’t pagan, but not many people outside the Sudan knew it.

Today Christianity is completely forgotten, Islam being the religion of 75°,,of Sudanese (the rest remaining pagan)and Arabic the language of more than50”,,. The Mohammedan conquestbegan with the conversion of thenomads of the north-eastern desert inthe 12th century. In the next centuryNubia was overrun, followed by theKhartoum area in the 14th century.What had once been a neglected outpostof Christendom now became a neglectedcorner of Islam, with only the fact thatEgypt and Arabia looked her way forslaves keeping the Sudan in the pictureat all, The slaves, who had come fromthe general population during the conquest of the country, were now obtainedby raids into the Negro south andAbyssinia: the number exported slowlyrose from 1.000 a year in the 16th century to a maximum of 10,000 a year inthe 19th century.

The Sudan’s isolation was finallyended by the armies of a new pharaohof Egypt, the Khedive Mohammed Ali.His Western-equipped soldiers madeshort work of the black sultanates of thecentral Sudan: they even penetrated beyond the Mohammedan area and addeda new province entirely Negro andpagan on the south. But Egyptian rule


The earliest data are the esli,nates made in the colonial period of which the best arebased on the local surveys carried our by the Italians in their sector in 1931 (Ins) and1953 (I’25n,) The first census was held in 1975.

235

became increasingly unpopular as theyears passed and the appearance of anative messiah in the person of theMahdi put an end to the dream of asingle empire for the Nile valley. From1881 to 1898 the Mahdi and his successors ruled the Sudan as an independentstate; then the British appeared and imposed colonial rule. There is no basis tothe British claim thai Mahdist atrocitieshad reduced the population of the


The first reliable esihnates of the Sudanese population are those published by i/icBrit is/i authorities during the first half of i/us centur,’. Their general correctness “as

confirmed hr a sample census taken oil the eve of independence in 1955 6, n’hichprovided a figure of IO’26,n. By the ear/v seventies extrapolations from this isolatedsur,’e;’ Here getting “cr3’ shak;’ just hon shaky being revealed by a comparison of theofficial population estimate for 1973 (17,,;) .,‘ii/; the result of a ne,, count taken in thattear (124w). It c a reminder of the fragility of African statistics.

For the first count see The Population of the Sudan. a publication of thePhilosophical Societt’ of the Sudan (1958): on/~’preliminary figures are available as retfor the second. For the slave trade in this area see Y. F. Hasan, The Arabs and theSudan (1967), J. It Gray. A History of the Southern Sudan 1839—89(1961) and R. S.O’Fahev andi. L. Spaulding, Kingdom of the Sudan (1974).

Sudan to a fraction of its former figure:it was probably holding steady at about6m.

The Sudan prospered under Britishrule. By the middle of this century thepopulation had increased by 50°, to 9m.Since then the rate of growth hasquickened: the population now numbers13m and the figure is likely to increaseto about 20m by the end of the century.

20?

o 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 fl 000000000 0u~ 0100100 Ifl 010•O~ ~ 0 C.. ~ C00 — ‘-I — —

1975Africa Area 6

II

35AFRICA AREA 7 The Sahel States,

Mauritania, Mali,Niger and Chad5-Urn km’

The Sahel is the zone immediately south of the Sahara; it has enough rainfall tosupport pastoralism but not enough for crops. The states that are geographicallycentred on this zone from east to west they are Mauritania, Mali. Niger and Chad

overlap the zones to the north and south so they include large slices of Sahara andsmaller slices of agricultural land. As population densities are near zero in theSahara, low in the Sahel and high in the agricultural area, the demographic centresof gravity of all the Sahel states are near their southern borders.

The actual distribution of territory between the different states is as follows:

7a Mauritania l15m km2 (or which about 80°. is desert)

7b Mali I-25m km2

7c Niger l-30m km2 (of which about 4O’~ is desert)

7d Chad I-30m km2 ~)

Taking the area as a whole, a half is desert and a third is rather poor pasture: theremaining sixth lies within the zone of potential agriculture, though only a fractionof it is so used.

Before the introduction of agricultureand animal husbandry the population ofthe area of the present-day Sahel statesis unlikely to have exceeded 50,000: oncepastoralism and agriculture had becomewell established the population canhardly have been less than half a million. The chronology of the transition isas yet totally obscure, but there is noreason to postulate anything above the50,000 line before 3000 BC or place theachievement of the half million laterthan t000 BC. From this latter point alow rate of increase is all that is neededto bring the total to Im by AD I and 2mby AD 1000.

From the Arab historians of theMaghreb we get a reasonably clear picture of the Sahel area over the next fewcenturies. There was a thin scattering ofBerber tribes across the Sahara, a muchmore numerous but still low-densitypopulation of ethnically mixed pastoralists in the Sahel and a relatively high-density concentration of Negro cultivators along the middle Niger wherethis river arcs northward through theSahel. In the south, in the agriculturalzone, were similar high density settlemcnts of purely Negro cultivators.The middle Niger was the politicalcentre of the region and the departure

Aft/ca Area 7

The Sahel States

30

MAURITANIA MALI

Nouakehott NIGERIt

Bam4~jf~~1iameYCl-lAD

FortLamy

6 (65)

8 8 ~ 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000000000 tO 0 tO 0100100100CO t’ ~ 0 000 .., — — —

1975~l

238

point for the caravans that now pliedregularly across the Sahara.

On their northward journey thesecaravans carried two commodities, goldand slaves. All the gold and probablymost of the slaves came from lands tothe south of the Sahel states, but even ifthe slaves were Sahelians the number despatched was too small to have a directeffect on the area’s population figures.At most we are talking of one or twothousand a year and that would notbe a significant drain on a population inexcess of 2m. A more important effectof the caravan traffic was the conversionof the nomads of the Sahara and Sahelto Islam. The new religion did not penetrate further south, the Negro cultivators of the agricultural zone remaining obstinately pagan. The effect is stillvisible today: Mauritania is 8O°~ pastoral and 90°c Moslem; Chad, at theother extreme, is only 10°, pastoral and400 Moslem.

Population growth in the Sahel statesin the late medieval and early modernperiods was slow and unsteady. Whenlbn Battuta visited the area in the 14thcentury it may have held 3m people.Nothing much changed in the next sixcenturies and when the French moved inin the early t900s they found a societywhich had slowly increased in numbers to about 6m but had other-

wise preserved its medieval structure.The French brought the benefits of

colonialism peace and an orderlyadministration and by 1950 the fruitsof their policies were apparent in anincrease in numbers to 8’Sm. By 1960,when the French provinces were transformed into the sovereign states oftoday, the Sahelians were in the throesof the sort of population explosion thatis characteristic of the Third World, andit was predicted that by 1975 theirpopulation would be 16m or more. Inthe event the severe drought that struckthe Sahel in the early 1970s hasprevented the population reaching thislevel. Leaving apart the raised mortalitydirectly due to the famine there has beena steady movement of people southward, away from the Sahel and into theagricultural zone. Best estimates are thatthe 1975 population is about 15m(Mauritania l-25m, Mali 55m. Niger4-Sm, Chad 3’75m).

The drought of the early 1970s hasbeen disastrous in itself: the fear is thatit marks the beginning of a phase ofdesiccation which will shift the wholeSahel zone to the south. There is noneed to stress how catastrophic thiswould be for the Sahel states aspresently defined, nor how such achange in climate would alter the long-term demographic outlook,

West Africa is the cradle ol the Negrorace. From the 100,000 people who livedin the area in mesolithic times derive the225m Negroes of present-day Africaplus the lOOm strong Negro and part-Negro populations of the New World,The only other black race of importance, the Nilo-Saharan peoples centredon the Sudan, number at most 30m, anorder of magnitude less,

The numerical expansion of theNegroes begins with their developmentof a neolithic technology. The dating iscurrently obscure, but the 3rd millennium BC would be a generally acceptedstarting point, with a subsequent slowrise in the population of West Africa tothe million by 1000 BC. Fresh impetuswas given by ihe arrival of iron-workingtechniques. c’.250 BC: these provided thebasis for a rather faster upswing whichcarried the total to 3m by AD I. The realrate of growth was actually higher thanthis, for towards the end of this periodthe Negroes of Nigeria began to pushout eastwards into the Cameroons. Thisexpansion, which ultimately created theBantu world of central, eastern andsouthern Africa, has its fbns et origo inEarly Iron Age West Africa,

Iron working probably came to WesiAfrica from the Maghreb, via theBerbers of the Sahara. Certainly a transSaharan traffic grew up in the course ofthe 1st millennium AD, with theMaghreb contributing textiles and othermanufactures, West Africa, gold andslaves. By AD 1000 as many as a thous

2-6m km2

Na Guinea (meaning all WestAfrica bar Nigeria) P68m km2

8b Nigeria O’92m km2

and slaves a year may have been des-patched to the Maghreb, by AD 1500 asmany as 2.000. These figures are of littledemographic significance for the WestAfrican population total, which reached7m by AD 1000 and lIm by 1500. Thehighest rate of despatch postulatedamounts to less than 002°,, per annum.

A new outlet for the slave trade appeared in the second half of the 15thcentury when Portuguese seamen finallymastered the geography ol the WestAfrican coast. Over the next hundredyears this sea route was a Portuguesemonopoly which supplied black slavesto Europe. the Atlantic islands and theNew World. The slave trade withEurope was barely significant, neverreaching a higher rate than 1,000 a yearand petering out completely in the mid16th century. The Atlantic islands imported slaves at about twice this rateuntil the end oF the 16th century when,in their case too, the trade fell otT toalmost nothing. The New World was adifferent matter: the economy of theEuropean colonies established there wassoon dependent on labour-intensiveplantations which needed a steady inputof new slaves just to stay in business.Their demand was measured in the tensof thousands and the Portuguese nevercame near satisfying it. Their failureopened the way for the Dutch to movein.

The Dutch revolutionized the Atlanticslave trade. They raised the annual rateof shipment from Africa as a whole

AFRICA AREA 8 West Africa


The French authorities began making population estimates short/v after they matedinto the area in the early 20th century. These estimates, often misleadingly referred toas censuses, are published in the standard handbooks. The independent governmentsthat took over in 1960 have done sonic small-scale sample counts (Mauritania19645. Mali 1960 61. Niger 1959 60, and Chad 1963 4) hut none l,ai’e as setattempted a full enumeration.

241

175200?

from 5,000 in 1600 to 25,000 by 1675.Even that was not enough: the Britishtook over from the Dutch and raised therate again. By 1785 75,000 Negroes werebeing loaded onto the vessels of theAtlantic slavers every year. Of these45,000 (60°c) were West Africans. Asthe total West African population hadnow increased to about 19m this figurecorresponds to an annual levy of 025°0.

The effect of the slave trade on WestAfrican numbers has been muchdebated. Some have talked of depopulation, others have denied any significanteffect. Putting it at its simplest, a reasonable natural growth rate for WestAfrica’s population at this time wouldbe 035°~ per annum (equivalent to adoubling of the population every 200years) so there is no reason to believethat even the maximum uptake didmore than cause a slowing-down inthe rate of expansion. Other factorsobviously have their influence and complicate the issue: slavery encouragedwarfare between the maritime Africanstates that supplied the slaves and theAfricans of the interior who were theraw material; slavery removed fromAfrican society young adults just entering on their reproductive period. On theother hand three men were taken forevery woman and the practice of polygamy could have gone a long way towards compensating for this sort of loss.And, unpleasant though the idea is, theslave trade did bring a certain amountof material prosperity to the successfulslaver states, the Ashanti of the GoldCoast for example, as well as leading tothe introduction of new food crops suchas manioc and maize, that resulted in anoverall improvement in native diet. Onthe whole it seems best to take thefigures at their face value and acceptthat the West African population neverstopped growing but that at the peak ofthe trade, in the later 18th century, the242

rate of increase wns sharply cut back.Towards the end of the 18th century

the brutality inherent in slavery andslaving began to trouble the Europeanconscience: the British, who had madethe most money out of the trade.became the first important nation tooutlaw it and by the early 19th centurythey were actually spending money onsuppressing it. This was the making ofFreetown, which had been founded in1792 as a haven for slaves that hadbeen liberated in England and becomedestitute as a result. There were nevermore than a few hundred of these andit was only in the period after theNapoleonic wars when the RoyalNavy’s anti-slavery squadron startedoperations in the Gulf of Guinea, andFreetown was designated the officiallanding place for all Negroes found inthe holds of intercepted slavers, that thesettlement began to grow. Some 60,000liberated slaves were put ashore therebetween 1819 and 1859; Freetown burgeoned. eventually becoming the capitalof the British colony of Sierra Leone.

For fifty years after its official abolition the slave trade was far from dead.Something like two thirds of a millionWest Africans were forcibly taken fromtheir homeland in the period 1810-60and the Royal Navy’s interception ratenever bettered 1000. But in the end official government policies prevailed andthere was even an attempt to get somemovement in the reverse direction, resettling blacks from America in Guinea.Needless to say, the effort was nevermore than token and though it is thefoundation myth of Liberia that its inhabitants are descended from liberatedAmerican slaves, no more than lO,000ex-American Negroes ever set foot there.The only group with a reasonable claimto be descended from them are the20,000 ‘Amerieo-Liberians’ who runthe country today and now, as always,

West Africa

f8bNIGERIA

S S ~ S 50000000000000200005 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 U’ 0 U, 0) 0 tO 50)

1975—tAfrica Area 8

ESTIMATED POPULATIONS FOR THE PRESENT-DAY STATESkeep the I75m ‘natives’ at arm’s length.The colonial period in West African

history is comparatively brief. The slavetrade had been run from a series of fortson the coast, with nobody making anyattempt to exert administrative controlover the interior. The European‘scramble for Africa’ in the period 1890—1910 completely changed this picture,the whole area, bar Liberia, beingdivided between Britain, France,Germany and Portugal. The Portugueseholding was limited to the area ofGuinea-Bissau, the German was takenover by the French and British duringthe First World War. In the finaldivision the French ended up withnearly half the territory but little morethan a quarter of the people. This wasbecause the main British slice was in the

east, where they ruled the block ofdensely populated territory that constitutes present-day Nigeria.

Population growth certainly accelerated during the colonial period,with the West African total rising from27m in 1900 to 35m in 1925 and 51m by1950. It has accelerated again sinceindependence and the rate of increase isnow so high that the population can beexpected at least to double in the nexttwenty-five years. This means that bythe year 2000 West Africa will containabout 20Gm people and Nigeria, alreadythe most populous state in Africa, willhave some l2Om inhabitants. The otherstates, as the table shows, are too smallfor any one of them to have reachedeven 20m by then though their aggregate will be of the order of SOm.

Colonialstatus.

Area first half000 km2 of20th c.

Populationproject tonfor theyear 2000

1975 (millions)


The earliest quantitative data for West Africa derive from the slave trade. The subjecthas recently been thoroughly resuri’eyed by * Curtin, whose i,ork is an essential basisfor any discussion of the subject. The effect of the trade is put into its quantitativecontext by J. D. Fage in his contribution to The Population Factor in African Studies(ed. R. P. Moss and R. J. A. R. Rathbone. 1975). Other ‘rise there is Per) little indeedfor the pre-colonial period. For the British section ulat there is is collected itt* Kuczynski’s first volume.

Front 1900 on. all the official handbooks give population figures. Up to the SecondWorld War these are o,,l,- educated guesses. fbr the actual head counts litre stillrestricted to a fm coastal areas and the totals were based on nothing more than thelocal administrators’ ideas of how many people lived in their areas. The first propercensus was held in 1948 in Ghana, at that time known as the Gold Coast. Following thisthere was a good count in Guinea-Bissau in 1950. a partial count in Nigeria in 1952—3and good counts in Liberia in 1962 and in Gambia and Sierra Leone in 1963.

Sb NiGERiA

Total area 8WEST

AFRICA 2,600

On the ,iMole. allowing Jbr a rectsonahle rate oJ growth, these counts have confirmedpre-war estimates. The Liherians turned oztt to hai’e bee,, exaggerating “lore thanso,newhat (1962 esti,nate 2-5,,t: census return 1-016m) hut to those with e.’-perience ofthe Liberian administration often refrrred to as Africa :~ best argutncnt Jhr colonialist,, titis ‘as ttot ati entire surprise. The real shocker was Nigeria s second count.

OFWESTAFRICA 1925 75

Population(millions)

1925 1950

1% Fr.

10 Br.

36 Port.

246 Fr.

Senegal

Gambia

GuineaBissau

GuineaConakry

SierraLeone

Liberia

16 20 4.5 90

02 03 0-5 1.0

04 05 06 08

20 22 4.5 90

(‘ape Verde Islands

The Cape Verde islands, a dozen islands with a total surface area of 4.000 km2. lie400 miles to the west of Cape Verde, itself the westernmost point of Africa (see Fig.3.1). They were discovered by the Portuguese in 1456 and settled by them from 1462on. The population, mostly consisting of African slaves, reached 10.000 by 1580,20,000 by 1700 and 60,000 by 1800. In the first half of this century it seemed to havelevelled off at 0l5m, but since 1950 it has doubled to the present lotal of 03m.Africans account for more than 95°, of this.

Ivory Coast 322 Fr.

Upper Volta 274 Fr.

72 Br. 17 19 29 60

III Independent 07 10 -8 36

Ghana

Togo

Benin

239 Br.

57 Fr.

113 Fr.

2-0 30 6-7 I 10

25 31 5-8 110

25 4.5 98 180

08 10 2-2 5-0

1-0 1.5 30 60

Total Area8a GUINEA 1.676

244 245

The basin of the Zaire the Congo as itused to be called is the homeland ofthe Pygmies. This is an ancient race ofmankind which has probably had thesame range for many thousands ofyears—ever since the last Ice Age at thevery least. There are about 200000Pygmies today: when they were the soleinhabitants of the area there may havebeen a few more but there is no reasonto believe that these simple hunting folkever numbered more than a quarter of amillion. We can take 0-2m as the levelaround which the population fluctuatedduring the period 10,000 to 1,000 BC.

Between 1000 Bc and AD I two newpeoples started to infiltrate the area.One group Came from the Sudan in thenorth-east, where a pastorally basedstyle of life had been evolved by theNilo-Saharan tribes: this movementnever got further than the northernfringe of the area, the only part suitablefor pastoralism. and even in thisrestricted territory the density of population remained low. All in all the totaladdition to the population as a resultof the arrival of the Nilo-Saharans isunlikely to have exceeded 100,000.

Much more important was theinvasion of the Bantu. From Nigeria,where they had evolved their agricultural system, the Bantu percolatedthrough the Cameroon highlands intothe north of the Zaire basin. Workingtheir way eastward they soon occupiedthe whole zone between the NibSaharan territory in the extreme north

5-35m km2

9a Equatoria l-75m km29b Zaire 2-35m km29c Angola I’25m km2

and the rain-forest where the Pygmieshad found their final refuge. By AD I,when this phase was complete and thevan of the Bantu advance had passedinto East Africa, the population of thearea as a whole was over a million.

The early centuries of the Christianera saw the Bantu now possessors ofiron tools penetrating the rain-forestand completing their conquest of Area9. Population totals mounted steadily ifunspectacularly: a rate of increase of0-l4°~ per annum, equivalent to adoubling of the total every 500 years, issufficient to transform the million of AD

I into the 8m we can reasonablypostulate for AD 1500. After this datethere will have been a slight acceleration, for the Portuguese discovery ofthe Equatoria—Zairc—Angola coastline(1472—86) was quickly followed byregular contact between this part ofAfrica and the rest of the world. By1900 the population had reached 15mthis despite the fact that the contact hadturned out to be almost exclusively amatter of removing as many of thenatives as possible and selling them asslaves in the New World.

The slave trade in this area wasprimarily a Portuguese venture, withBrazil as its major market Up to 1810 itwas overshadowed by the West Africansector and contributed only 4 out ofevery 10 slaves shipped across theAtlantic roughly speaking 130,000 outof 330,000 In the 16th century, 630,000out of I-Sm in the 17th century and 3m

held after the country gained its independence in 1962. for this showed such a largepopulation increase that either the 1952—3 figures or the new ones had to be wrong.Because the political incentive to return inflated figures Has clear Nigeria’s federalconstitution means that the power, the glory and the other good things in governmentare distributed to the individual states in proportion to their population it ti-as generally assumed that the new figures it-ere too high. A recount Has ordered for the nextyear hut no it’ everyone it-as in on the game and the 1963 return showed a large furtherincrease. And so it has gone on: the last census in the series, in 1973, yieldedafigure of79,,~ as against the UN’s esti,nate. already on the high side because it teas based on the1963 returns, of 59,;;. For a s,’nipathetic’ account nj this situation see the article hi’R. M. Prothero in the Geographical Magazine entitled ‘Nigeria Loses Count’ (1974).

The current situation is that Gambia (second census 1973), Sierra Leone, Liberia,Ghana (repeat censuses 1960 and 1970), Gitinea-Bissau (repeal censuses 1960 and1970) and Togo and Ivory Coast (first censuses 1970 and 1975 respectively) haveestablished their population figures with reasonable certainty: that Senegal, GuineaConakr;’, Upper Volta and Beni,, hat-c take~z sample censuses (in thc period1955—61. as (lid Ivory Coast) which hate established the o,’der of tnagnitude oj’ theirpopulations and that no one knott-s it-hat thc popukttion of Nigeria Lc to ti’ithin IOn,.

AFRICA AREA 9 Equatoria,Zaire and Angola

247

out of 7’Sm in the 18th century. Alterthe official abolition of the slave trade inthe early 19th century the south Atlanticroute came into its own. Plying betweencomplaisant Portuguese officialdom inAngola and eager plantation owners inBrazil, the contraband slavers of thesouth Atlantic shipped l3m of the 2mslaves taken from Africa between 1810and 1870.

Impressive though these figures arethey probably had little effect on thegrowth rate of the native population.The natural increase was probably ofthe order of 20—30,000 a year and it wasonly during the boom years of the late18th century that the number of peopleremoved by the slave traders exceeded20,000. Even then there was almost certainly suflicient reproductive slack avatlable to make up the loss. As the slaverstook three males for every female, polygamy was one obvious way of makinggood: the new food crops introducedfrom the Americas made the task easier.

The colonial period begins in the late

19th century. Germany took over theCameroons, the French the rest ofEquatoria (bar the Spanish enclave ofRio Muni) and the Belgians Zaire. ThePortuguese contented themselves withoccupying the hinterland of their long-established settlements on the Angolancoast. The First World War saw theFrench expel the Germans from theCameroons: the aftermath of the SecondWorld War saw the French leavingEquatoria (1960), the Belgians leavingZaire (1960) and the Portuguese leavingAngola (1975). Only Angola hadacquired a significant number of whitesettlers and the Portuguese communitythere. 0’Sm strong at its peak in theearly 1970s, dwindled rapidly as thecountry moved towards independence.

During the first half of the 20th century the population of Area 9 grew fromlSm to 22m: in the period between 1950and 1975 it put on another 18m to reach40m. If things go on at this rate thefigure will be 70m or more by the year2000.

The present-day division of Equatoria isinto five states whose areas and 1975populations are as follows: Cameroon0’48m km2. pop. 6’3mz Central African

Equatoria, Zaire andAngola

50 EQUATORIALGUINEA

Princii~ë

Thomé

CENTRALAFRICAN

7-i REPUBLIC

~ Bangut•Yaoun’dé, 4,

- __j . ---.

Libreville ~CONGO

GABON

~azzavill ZAIRE

Kinshasha(Leopoldville)40

1900 1925 1950 /975

9a Equatoria 4 5

9b Zaire 8 9 12 24

9c Angola 3 3’S 4 6

15 175 22 40

30

ESTIMATED POPULATIONS OF EQUATORIA, ZAIRE ANDANGOLA 1900 1975

Republic 063m km2. pop. l’7m;

6 10 Equatorial Guinea 0’03m km2. pop.03m; Gabon 0-26m km2. pop. 0’Sm;and Congo 034m km2. pop. l3m.

There are two offshore islands, SaoThomé and Principè (combined area1.000 km’). They were uninhabitedwhen the Portuguese discovered them atthe end of the 15th century: by 1800they had a population of 12,000 whichhad grown to 40,000 by 1900. Today thefigure is 75.000.


There hai’e bee,, counrri—sricle counts in Equatorial Guinea (1950 and 1960), Congo(/974) and Angola (decennialli’ three 1940). hut onl;’ sample cv,it?it5 in rise Ca,neroons(/960 61). the Central African Republic’ (1959 60), Ga/urn (1960 61) and Zaire(1955 8).

248

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0~ 000000000b~Q~~ 0 t’

CC) — — — — •0≥1975~~1

Africa Area 9

Bushmen were the sole inhabitants ofEast Africa until well on in the last millennium BC. Their culture was that ofStone Age hunters and gatherers, theirnumbers meagre, certainly no more than100,000 in all. This remained the totalpopulation of the region as late as 500ac, when the first groups of cattle-herders moved in from the north.

The various tribes of cattle-drivers,who were of Cushite or Nilo-Saharanstock, didn’t have the pastures of EastAfrica to themselves for long By AD Iadvance parties of Bantu were crossingthe present-day Zaire Uganda frontierand settling on the shores of the easternlakes, As agriculturalists, the Bantunaturally lived at higher densities thanthe pastoralists and by the time they hadspread over the whole area which tooktill about AD 500 they comfortablyoutnumbered them. The total population will have been over the millionmark by then: by AD 1000 it will havefurther increased to 3m.

East Africa’s isolation from the restof the world had ceased to be absoluteby this time. Arab seamen, shopping forivory and slaves, began regular visitsduring the 10th century and by the 14thcentury there was a string of small trading posts along the coast. Their effectwas strictly limited: the slaves exportedamounted to a few hundred annually,perhaps as many as a thousand in anexceptional year, but even the higherfigure is of no significance in relation tooverall population figures of 4m or Sm.

Burundi O-05m km2

Towards the end of the t8th century theArabs did step up the scale of theiroperations. By the I 780s the export ratehad risen to 2,000 a year, by the early1800s it was more than 3,000. To getthis number of captives the slavers hadto send marauding expeditions into theinterior. At the peak of the trade, in the1850s and 60s, these raids regularlyreached across the whole width of EastAfrica and some 20,000 people werebeing taken to the coast for sale everyyear. Double this figure to allow for theloss of life caused by the raids and thelotal is probably big enough lo stuntthe growth of the area’s population, eventhough this was now more than tOm.Even so the effect was momentary. In1873 the British. bit of (he morallbrvour that marks reformed sinners.forced the local Arabs to give up thetrade and Zanzibar, the last great slavemart in the world, shut up shop.

The British action heralded the beginning of East Africa’s colonial era.Initially the 13m people that the areacontained in 1900 were divided betweenthe British (67m: 3m in present-dayUganda, 3Sm in present-day Kenya and02m in the Zanzibar islands) and theGermans (63m: 38m in Tanganyikaand 2Sm in Rwanda and Burundi).After the First World War the Britishtook over Tanganyika and the BelgiansRwanda and Burundi. Populationgrowth was rapid in all parts and by theearly 1960s, when the east African statesof today achieved their independence,

AFRICA AREA 10 East AfricaI-72m km’

lOa UgandalOb KenyatOe TanzanialOd Rwanda and

frZIm km2fr57m km2fr89m km2

East Africa

U ANDA KENYA

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 Q 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 ~ 008 ~ 82 ~ 00 0a~ Q 10010 10 100

0’ ~ tO CD I”0’ — — —

1975—i

250 Africa Area 10

their numbers were double or more thandouble what they had been at the begin-fling of the century. They have continued to grow at an accelerating ratesince, so the area seems likely to containsomething like lOOm people by the year2000.

Most East Africans are Bantu, theproportion varying from 70°, InUganda and Kenya to 9000 in Rwandaand Burundi and 95°c in Tanzania. EastAfrican society, however, is less harmonious than these figures suggest. Forseveral centuries the Bantu peasantry ofBurundi have been ruled by the NibSaharan Tutsi even though they outnumber their masters by nearly ten toone. Until a spectacularly bloody uprising in 1962 the same was true inRwanda. In Uganda there is consider-

able religious tension between Moslems(5°c of the population) and Christians(60°~) and this is a potential source oftrouble everywhere in East Africa,which has a large number of Christians(48°c) and a smaller but increasing percentage of Moslems (l2°~).

Alien minorities include O’l2m Arabs(mostly in Zanzibar). 0-Im Somali (innorthern Kenya) and 0-3m Indians (inTanzania and Kenya). The Indians,originally brought in by the British torun the railways, have established themselves as the most successful andunpopular of these groups. At onetime there were another 0-I m in Ugandabut in 1972 they were expelled en masseand without warning: most of themended up in Britain,

Primary Sources

Thefirst esiima tes of the population of East Africa li-crc made in the years inunediatelyfolio wing the Anglo-German occupation of the area- By the beginning of the Firs!World War the estimates “crc reasonahi,’ well grounded in administrative experienceand there had actuallr been a count in Zanzibar (1910). The firs! count on the mainlandn-as carried out in Uganda in 1931. Thefirst census in the area li-as a simultaneous jointeffort by the athninistrations of Uganda, Kenya. Tanganvika and Zanzibor in 1948.The second round was held in sequence in Tanganyika (1957), Zanzibar (1958).Uganda (1959) and Kenya (1962) and a third in Tanzania (1967) and Uganda andKenya (1969). In Rwanda and Burundi there have been onlt’ sample cowits.

Bibliography

East Africa, Its People and Resources (ed. W. T. W. Morgan, 1972) has a chapter ondemography by J. G. C. Blacker n-hick gives all the data for Uganda. Kenya andTanzania. For an excellent account of the Ugandan and Ken ran populations in thiscentury see An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda ki’ R. M. A. vanZwanenherg and Anne King (1975). For Rwanda and Burundi see the report by the UNDepartment of Social Affairs. Population Division (Pop. Si,tdies No. 15)., ThePopulation of Ruanda-Urundi (1953).

4fl-ket Aires !Oct ci

10?

The aborigines of south-central Africa,the Bushmen, never numbered morethan 75,000 and it was only with thearrival of the first Bantu in the 3rd century AD that the total for the area roseto the 100,000 mark. Even then population growth remained astonishinglyslow: there could hardly have been morethan 0-Sm people in AD 1000 or Im inAD 1500 because there were only 2m in1900. This is a remarkably poor performance for an agricultural people in avirgin and not inhospitable land.

In the l890s the British established aprotectorate over the whole of south-central Africa. They divided it into threecolonial units which they calledNorthern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesiaand Nyasaland and which are nowknown asZambia, Rhodesia and Malawi.Malawi, the southernmost segment ofthe Rift Valley, had the high populationdensity that has long characterized thisstrip of territory: though its area is lessthan 10°, of the whole it contained wellover a third of the area’s population in1900. The remaining two thirds of the2m total was spread fairly evenly acrossRhodesia and Zambia. As Zambia is byfar the larger of the two this meant thatit had 0’75m people to Rhodesia’s 0-Sm.

During the 20th century the popula


tion of the area has grown rapidly!indeed its rate of growth has steadilyaccelerated. The increase is slowest inMalawi, which has the most limitedresources so much so that at any onetime 0’25m ol its adult males are working in the mines of Zambia and SouthAfrica. Even so, Malawi’s populationhas quadrupled in the last fifty years toreach Sm today. Rhodesia, from beingthe least populous, has become, at 6’ Im,the most populous It is also unique inthat sufficient British settled there in thecolonial period to create a white settlerproblem. By 1965 there were 0’23m ofthem, enough to seize control of thecountry and so far hang on to it.However, their chances of continuing todo so for much longer must be rated asslim: they constitute less than 5°, of thepopulation and even this low percentageis declining.

Trouble in Rhodesia has made difficulties for Zambia: conversely theresolution of the Rhodesian problemwould ease Zambia’s political and economic situation. With more resourcesthan most African states specificallythe mines of the copper belt and withnot too many people — currently only49m this is an African country withbetter prospects than most.

AFRICA AREA 11 South-CentralAfrica1-26m 1cm’

Ila Zambiafib Rhodesialic Malawi

O-75m km2O-39m km2O-IZm km2

South - CentralAfrica

ZAMBIA

Lusaka•

Salisbury

RHODESIA

12?

10?

32?

The various estimates and counts made by the British colonial authorities during theperiod 1901 56 are given in Table 1 of the introduction to the report on the 1956 censusofall three territories (published in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1960). Since then there havebeen censuses in Zambia in 1963 and 1969. in Rhodesia in 1962 and 1969 and inMalawi in 1966.

1.2515

0 Q — 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 fl 000000000 Ou~ 0 tOO tOO

~3.25

20000 tOOa’ o— c~

1975

Africa Area 11

35AFRICA AREA 12 Mozambique

O’78m km’

Mozambique’s original inhabitants wereBushmen, about 50,000 of them. Theywere displaced by Bantu, who enteredthe area from the north and west in the4th and SthcenturiesAD. ByAD 1000 theBantu had multiplied up to a third of amillion and the Bushmen had vanished:Mozambique has been a Bantu countryever since. The name, however, isArabic: it comes from the first point ofcontact with the outside world, the trading post established by the Arabs ofZanzibar in the 13th century.

The Portuguese replaced the Arabs inMozambique town and indeed as masters of the whole coast in the early lathcentury. Most of the Bantu there wereabout Im of them by this time werequite unaffected by the change, thoughthe Portuguese did attempt to establishsome sort of control of the interior, particularly along the line of the Zambesi.They were hoping to find gold, butdidn’t. Nor did they do very well out ofthe slave trade. Mozambique was off themain slaving routes and its contributionto the Atlantic traffic initially amountedto only about 2~°~ equivalent to an export rate of 100 or so a year in the 16thcentury and no more than 600 a yeareven in the 17th century.

tn the 18th century there was asharp acceleration in the local traflic inslaves: the French had settled nearby

Primary Sources

Reunion and Mauritius and naturallylooked to Mozambique to meet theirneeds in this department. By the end ofthe century the total annual shipment ofslaves from Mozambique had reached10,000. And there it stayed, even afterthe oflicial abolition of the traffic in1810. The British Navy’s small antislavery squadron was fully occupied offWest Africa, so the Portuguese inMozambique were able to supply theircompatriots in Brazil without interference from anyone. Mozambique’s sliceof the shrinking Atlantic traffic rose tenfold, to a quarter. Between 1810 and1860 (when the anti-slaving laws werefinally made effective) 0’Sm slaves wereshipped from Mozambique for acumulative total of 09m.

The late-l9th-century ‘scramble forAfrica’ by the European powers forcedthe Portuguese to define the frontiers ofMozambique and establish control overthe hinterland. As elsewhere in the continent the imposition of an effectiveadministration was followed by amarked upturn in the rate of populationgrowth: in the first half of the centurynumbers increased from 3m to 5’75mand today on the eve of independencethe total is 9m. All are black; the150,000 Portuguese settlers all got out assoon as the handover of power was announced,

Mozambique

30

25

5

4

3

2

1

The first in what has become a decennial series of counts “as rake,, in 1940. the qualityof these has gradually improved and it is fair to regard the 1970 count as a census.Before 1940 we have to rely on official esrttnares: these are only of any value within thiscentury.

256

— (2.5)

2 II•III

0 0 ‘-‘ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 c’ 0 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 0w 0- ~ C) 0

— . — — 402

14, ~ 1975_.l

Africa Area 12

AFRICA AREA 13 Southern Africa2-67m km’

13a The Union of South Africa,Swaziland andLesothoI-27m km’

13a-I The Union

13a-2 Swaziland

13a-3 Lesotho

1-22m 1cm’

O-02m km’

&03m km2

Bushmen, about 75.000 of them. had thesouth of Africa to themselves until thefirst Bantu cultivators crossed theLimpopo around AD 500. By AD 1000.when the total population had risen to300,000, Bantu outnumbered Bushmenand the disproportion was increasing.

The line of the Bantu advance ismarked by the Drakensberg, the mountain range that forms southern Africa’sbackbone. Running parallel to the eastcoast the Drakensberg catches sufficientrainfall to change a naturally aridclimate into one favourable to agriculture. This was what the Bantu neededand the eastern half of the country soonbecame their preserve: the western halfwas left to the Bushmen and an intermediate group, the Hottentots, whowere Bushmen who had learnt how toherd cattle.

In 1487 Bartholomew Diaz discovered the Cape of Good Hope: in1652 the first ninety European colonistswere put ashore there by the Dutch EastIndia Company which wanted to estab

lish a revictualling station for its merchant ships. By 1700 the Cape Colonyhad grown to 1,250 Europeans plus anequal number of Africans, eithercoloureds’ (the local EuropeanHottentot mixture) or imported Bantuslaves. At this time the remainder of thewestern half of the country containedsome 50,000 Bushmen and Hottentots.The density of settlement in the easternhalf was of a quite different order: therewere now no less than a million Bantuliving in the folds of the Drakensberg,cultivating its valleys and spilling on tothe veld.

The 18th century was not a time ofgreat change in southern Africa: theDutch multiplied up to 22,000 andincreased their slaves in proportion, to25,000. The number of Bushmen andHottentots slowly fell to 25,000: thenumber of Bantu slowly rose to l’Sm.By contrast the 19th century was an eraof dramatic upheaval. In the course ofthe Napoleonic wars the British tookover the Cape and when the war ended

The Union of S.AfricaSwaziland & Lesotho

35

30

25

20

o 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0-0 0 0 0o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 10 0 in o 10 0 tO0 ~ 0)00 ‘-4 — — — 4011975~~1

258 Africa Area 13a

British immigrants started to pour in.The Cape Dutch the Boers didn’tlike this at all: they didn’t like Britishlaws, they didn’t like British people. Inthe 1830s some 12,000 of them trekkedoff to the north and, beyond the area ofBritish control, established what eventually became the two Boer republicsof the Orange Free State and theTransvaal, The British also expanded: inthe l840s they set up the colony ofNatal on the east coast and theyadvanced the frontier of the CapeColony across the Great Fish River, theIraditional limit of the Bantu zone.Nearly 2 million Bantu found themselves being pushed back into theDrakensberg by the Boers on the westand the English on the south, At mid-century there were 100.000 whites in theCape. 5,000 in Natal and 30,000 in theBoer republics’ the number of blackshad risen to l’85m.

The pace of change accelerated in thesecond half of the century. Attracted bythe discovery of diamonds (1867) andgold (1886). European immigrants camein in larger numbers than ever, a total ofhalf a million (70, British) arriving between 1850 and 1900. This brought thewhite population to more than a millionand made it for the first time a respectable proportion roughly a fifth of thewhole. Besides its I 2m whites and3’75m Bantu, southern Africa at thistime the end of the 19th century alsocontained 0’4m Cape coloureds and0-Im Indians, mostly indentured lab-

ourers. The Bushman and Hottentotpopulations had dwindled into extinction.

The Boer War (1899-1902) whichended with the British incorporating theOrange Free State and Transvaal in theUnion of South Africa no longer appears the watershed it seemed at thetime. The British Empire has vanished.the Boers (who constitute 60°, of thewhite population) are in complete control and it is their ideas that have determined the Union’s distinctive socialstructure, in particular its policy ofapartheid (separation of the races). Thismeans that the Union is run by and forits 4’Im whites, with the 2’3m Capecoloureds, 0’75m Indians and 18mblacks, who together constitute morethan 80”, of its population, having nosay and little status in the land of theirbirth. Theoretically the l’Sm Bantu inthe decolonized and independentenclaves of Swaziland and Lesotho are alot better off but they are as close-pinioned by poverty as the Bantu of theUnion are by the South African police.

The different reproduction rates ofthe races of southern African communities suggest that the present politicalstructure can hardly be maintaincd beyond the end of this century. By thenthere will be 5’Sm whites as against 4’SmCape coloureds. I’Sm Asians and 36mBantu (not counting another 3m inSwaziland and Lesotho) and the nonwhite majority will have increased tonear 90”,.

1865. 1875, 18911867, 1875. 18911880, 1890

Transvaal 1890 (whites). 1892 (others)


The records of the Cape Colony are as full a.c ani’one could irish hut 0/course app/i’on/i’ to the frontiers of’ the time. The result tc that though lie know the history of thewhie population from 1652 to the present in adequate detail (see the article h R. Rossin Population Studies 29 (2) 1975), total populat ion figures become direct/i’ availableonly with the Union census series that begins in 1904. We can, however, get a fair ideaof tile population in the second half of the 19th cent un’ by using the ‘censuses’ of the

13b-l Namibia (South-West Africa) O’825m km2

separate provinces plus a hit of back extrapolation for the Bantu areas that stillretained their independence. These provincial censuses’ were held in the followingi’ears:

CapeNatalOrange Free State

In all cases proper census procedure “‘as lhnited to the ii’hite population atid the numberof’ natives iras either obtained hi’ indirect ,nea,,,s’ such as hut counts, or hi’ adnutu—strative estimates.

Union censuses have been held in 1904, 1911, 1921, 1936. 1946, 1951, 1960 and1970.

During the years 1800 to 1850 population figures can on/i’ he informed guesses. Ingeneral the evidence suggests that the Bantu peoples Here multiplying rapid/v. certain/i’rapidly enough to n,ore than make up for any losses ini’oli’ed in the (‘real ion of the Zuhitstate in the 1820s. In/act our figure of’ I’Si,, for 1800 can he taken as a high estimate,,iore likely to need rei’ising doirn that, up. This is a point north mnaking.fór icr;’ highfigures for the beginning of the century up to 5,,;— have been proposed as part of atheory that in 1800 the Bantu Here thickli’ settled in the Orange Free State andTransvaal areas and that this population was later annihilated hi’ marauding tribespushed out of the Drakensherg h; the Zulu king Shaka. It is all most improbable andseetns to he political/i’ inspired, a counterblast to Boer propaganda about the OrangeFree State and Transvaal being ii’ithout ant’ Bantu at all when the trekkers ,noi’ed in.Neither of the e,vtreme views is real/i’ tenable. It is like/i’ that there were about haifamillion Bantu in the area of the Boer republic’s during the ear/i’ 19th centuri’ (near/i’ allof’ the,,, in the Transi’aal) and that the number n’as increasing, it is not reasonable toheliei’e that there had ever been as tnany’ as 2’Stn or less that, 0’ In,,

Presun,ab/i’ because it is such a political hot potato nohodi’ has attempted a synthesis of the population data for the 19th century. The figures for the tiro enclai’es ofLesotho and Sn’a:ila,,d are gii’eti in • Kuc’:i’nski. Vol. 2.

18b Namibia and Botswana I’4oom km2

l3b-2 Botswana (Bechuanaland) O’575m km’

Although Namibia and Botswana lienorth of the Union of South Africa’sCape Province they constitute the realterminus of the continent, Here, particularly in the Kalahari Desert of

southern Botswana, the Bushmen havefound their last refuge, Today there areabout 50.000 of them (30,000 inBotswana. 20.000 in Namibia). the onlysurvivors of a population that once

260 261

numbered a third of a million androamed freely across the whole of eastern and southern Africa.

The Bantu moved into the area fromthe north and north-east in the periodAD 500 1500: the movement was on avery small scale, for when the colonialperiod began in the 1880s there wereonly about a quarler of a million Bantuin Namibia (German-controlled) andBotswana (British-controIlcd) together.The 20th century has seen a rapidincrease tn numbers. Namibia’s popula- TOTAL 0-320 0-425 0-7 10 1-550


Estbnates of ,Va,nibia ‘s population i”e,-e published by the Gennans front 1900 on. In1915 the athninisrranon of’ tile count?-)’ it-as taken over by i/ic’ Union of Sour/i Africa,situ-c ,i’hen the estimates hate gradually been supplemented bj’ counts in each of theUnion’s census years. By 1951 the proportion counted reached 50°, and the figures cannon’ be regarded as entirely reliable,

Estimates of Botsn’ana’s population n’ere published by rite Bitt is/i fi’ons 1904 on:there here counts in 1936 and 1946 and censuses have been taken in 1956, 1964 and1970, See * Kuc’zynski, Vol. 2.

tion has risen from 0-2m to 0-9m andBotswana’s from 012m to 0-66m (seetable).

ESTIMATED POPULATIONSOF NAMIBIA ANDBOTSWANA 1900 1975

1900 1925 1950 1975

Namibia 0-200 0-250 0400 0890Botswana 0-120 0-175 0-310 0-660

SouthWest Africa &Botswana

Windhoek BOTSWANA

abronc- SOUTH

- WESTAFRICA

K4L4HARIDESERT

5

13?

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 fl 000000000010 Q tO 0100100100

0 t ~ 000 ‘-I — — — ot

1975

Africa Area Jib

AFRICA AREA 14 The Islands of theWestern IndianOceanO-6m km2

14a Madagascar O’59m km2

The island of Madagascar received itsfirst colonists at the beginning of theChristian era. They came not fromAfrica but from Indonesia and the voyage across the 3,000 miles of IndianOcean that separate the two must havebeen either totally accidental or of theblind migration’ type usually associated

with Polynesians rather thanIndonesians. Intended or not, the colonization of Madagascar was successful;by the end of the 1st millennium theisland contained some 02m Malagasy.all descended from the few boatloads ofIndonesians who had arrived over theprevious ten centuries. No one inIndonesia, indeed no one anywhere,knew of the colony’s existence.

The era of total isolation ended in the14th century, when the Arabs tradingalong Africa’s east coast finally got thisfar south, The Arabs introduced twonew elements into the island’s ethnography themselves and their Negroslaves yet neither Ihe newcomers northeir commerce really prospered.Malagasy society was too unsophisticated to generate much in the way ofdemand, there were no natural resourcesof significance and slaves were morereadily obtained from the mainland.Even the Portuguese, who in 1500became the first Europeans to reconnoitre the island, could find nothing todetain them. The Malagasy 07m ofthem by this time were left to their

own devices until the coming of theFrench.

The first French move was made in1643 when Fort Dauphin was established on the south-east corner of theisland. The hope was that EastIndiamen would find it useful as a revictualling station. However, it soonbecame clear that the nearby island ofReunion was far better suited for thisfunction. Fort Dauphin was abandonedand the French connection was reducedto visits by slavers operating fromReunion and, later, Mauritius. About athird of the slave population of Reunionand Mauritius apparently came fromMadagascar, which means that theisland’s rate of export in the 18th century will have been around 500 1.000 ayear. This is of no numerical significancein relation to a population that mustnow have been over a million and anyhow it is likely that many, maybe most,of the slaves exported from Madagascarhad been brought over from the mainland of Africa in the first place.Probably the most significant effect ofthe slave trade on the island’s population was the appearance of a definiteBantu element as a result of escapes andemancipations at the slaving ports.

France resumed official contact withMadagascar in the 1880s; this time shecame to stay. In 1895 a French expeditionary force landed on the islandand reduced the Malagasy who at this

Madagascar

00’-’ 00000000000000000 fl 000000000 0h~ 0 U’ Oh’

‘(2.5)

2.75

II0 0 0 0 00 tO 0 U’ 0

0~ 0— —

1975

264 ,4f’k’a .4 icc? 14a

time numbered about 275m to colonial status. During the subsequent periodthe conventional wisdom was thatMadagascar was underpopulated: therewas even talk of recolonizing the islandwith more prolific peoples from Africaor Asia. Actually the Malagasy werereproducing at a perfectly respectablerate and, by the time the French left in

The Comoros, which lie in theMozambique channel between Africaand Madagascar. were probably uninhabited when discovered in the 14thcentury by Arab seamen from Zanzibar.Gradually they collected a population of

1960. there were Sm of them. Now, incommon with most underdevelopedcountries, an accelerating rate ofpopulation increase is a factor threatening future prosperity, for the currentpopulation of 8m is likely to havemultiplied up to l5m by the end of thecentury.

2,170 km3

Negro and Malagasy underdogs ruledby a few Arab overdogs. Annexed bythe French in the 19th century, theywere estimated to have a population of80.000 in 1900. Today the figure isthought to be about 300.000.

14d MauritiusThe Dutch planted a colony onMauritius in 1638. It never prosperedand the few hundred souls there wereevacuated in 1710 when the success ofthe Cape Colony made its revictuallingfunction superfluous. A few years laterthe island was settled by Frenchmenfrom nearby Reunion: they successfullydeveloped the island’s present sugarplantation economy. In 1750 the islandspopulation was 10,000; by 1800 it hadgrown to 60.000. Nearly 50,000 of the

Populations in thousands, to1500 1600

COMORO5 tO 20REUNION

MAURITIUS

SEYCHELLES

1,865 km2

60.000 were slaves whose Origins lay inMadagascar or Mozambique.

In 1810 the British took Mauritius.They prohibited first the slave trade,then slavery, introducing Indian cooliesinstead 300,000 of them between 1834and 1910. As a result the island’spopulation zoomed from 176,000 in1850 to 370,000 in 1900 and 500,000(two thirds Indian) in 1950. The presentfigure is 900.000,

1800 1850 19(X) 1925 195050 60 80 120 160

20 70 120 180 190 26010 60 180 370 390 500

20 30 40


The precolonial population of the Comoros could be a subject for controversy if anyonewas interested; there are no data bearing directly on the subject and numbers have to beinferred front general considerations and back projections from the first French~vti,,iates. Bt’ cont,-a.ct the ,iiatcrial on Reunion and Maurilius is all one could ifs/i;counts were made right front the start and there is no doubt about the size of thepopulation of eithcr ctt any time. For a soup/c tabulation of’thcfiguresfbr RCutno,, andMauritius (ctncl the Seychelles) see the statistical appendix in Auguste ToussaintHistoire des lIes Mascareignes (1972). We have been unable to find anything on theComoros beyond the material in the standard handbooks.

Primary Sources

The first population esthuate produced by the French administration “as based on acensus of taxpayers in 1900; later estimates were based on greater administrativeexperience but on equally indirect data. The situation has improved a bit late4’.’ in 1966a sample census was taken which is estimated to have covered about i2°~ of the island’spopu/at ion. However, there has been no true census to date.

14b The Comoro Islands

POPULATIONS OF THE SMALLER ISLANDS OF THE WESTERNINDIAN OCEAN

the nearest 10.0001700 175030 40

14c Reunion 2,511 km2

‘975300500900

60

Previously uninhabited, Reunion wascolonized by the French in 1665. Theintention was to provide a revictuallingstation for their East Indiamen. Population grew from 1,000 in 1700 to 15,000(two thirds of them slaves) in 1750 and65.000 (three quarters of them slaves) in1800. Following the abolition of slavery

The Seychelles, a group of ninety-two islands and islets in the Indian Ocean with atotal area of 400 km2. were colonized by the French in the 1770s and annexed by theBritish in 1810. They then contained a few hundred colonists and a few thousandNegro slaves. By 1900 the population had grown to 20.000. today it is about 55.000.

in 1848 indentured labourers fromIndia. Indo-China and China werebrought in to work the sugar plantations which had become and stillremain the island’s economic raisond’être. By 1900 the population was175,000; today it is over haIfa million.

Part Four

The Amer cas

Fig. 4.1 The Americas subdivision hi area

I CANADA2 THE CONTINENTAL USA3 MEXICO4 CENTRAL AMERICA5 THE CARIBBEAN ISLANDS6 COLOMBIA, VENEZUELA

7 BRAZIL8 ECUADOR, PERU,

BOLIVIA and PARAGUAY9 ARGENTINA, CHILE

and URUGUAY

a

3

4

Islands

6

8

9&

andIheGUYANAS

THE AMERICAS: OVERVIEW40m km2

The land bridge between north-east Asia and north-west America, currently submerged under the Bering Strait, is the starting point for thepopulation history of the American continent. Before the last Ice Agebegan no man had ever crossed it and there was no such thing as anAmerican. By the time the Ice Age was over and the land bridge finallydisappeared beneath the waves it had served its purpose: the last of thehabitable continents had received its inoeulum of Horno sapiens.

The land bridge emerged in the Ice Age because the immense quantitiesof water locked up in the ice caps meant that the level of the sea was lowerthan today. But one of these same ice caps usually blocked the Alaskan endof the land bridge so that there were actually only three periods during the60,000-year span of the last Ice Age when the bridge could be used to enterAmerica. According to geologists these occurred in 35 30,000 BC, 2520,000 Bc and, comparatively briefly, around 10,000 BC. Despite manyclaims to the contrary there is no convincing case for any settlement inAmerica earlier than 10,000 BC, so it looks very much as though it wasduring the third period that the successful colonization was made. Thecredit should probably go to a band of Siberian mammoth-huntersprepared to follow their mammoth and their hunches — further thanmost.

Whether or not they were the first men ever to set foot on the continent,these Americans of the 10th millennium BC were quite certainly the first tobe fruitful and multiply. During the next ten centuries their numbersrocketed from less than 10,000 to more than 100,000 and they began topenetrate into every corner of the land mass. They also killed off most ofthe big game: of the various elephants, camels, horses, ground sloths andbison that they preyed on, all bar one species of bison became extinct overthe next few millennia. It was from necessity as much as invention that anew life style evolved during this period, the more varied pattern of smallgame hunting, fishing and general foraging that is labelled mesolithic. Bythe 6th millennium BC this was the way of life of nearly all the 025mpeople living in the New World, only a few thousand on the Great Plainsfollowing the bison and the upper palaeolithic tradition.

The changeover from palaeolithic to mesolithic was soon followed by

TheAmericas

- s000000000000 ~fl 0 tfl 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 1St 0~ eo t- ~ a~ 0

o 0 — — ‘-I •-~ .021975_~l

Fig. 4.2 The Americas. continental total 271

another, much more important development. People living oft the ediblefruits and roots of the American tropics diseovered that a bit of attentionto the right plants at the right time resulted in a big improvement in thefood supply. Knowledge filtered out to the tribes living in the tropicaltemperate borderlands and they in their turn tried their hand at cultivatingthe local grasses. The end result was the appearance of two societies practising true agriculture, one on the northern tropical temperate border, inmeso-America (Mexico and Central America), one on the southerntropical temperate border, in Peru. The New World had achieved its‘neolithic revolution’. The pay-off in demographic tetms was continuinggrowth to 45m by AD I, 9m by AD 1000 and 14m by 1492.

The end of the 15th century marks the end of this road. By then bothMexico and Peru had reached a cultural stage equivalent to the Near Eastof 2000 BC, and as Fig. 4.3 shows they had achieved comparable population densities. This means that the Aztec Empire, the final hair-raisinglycruel expression of meso-American society, had 3m or 4m subjects and theInca Empire, its more benevolent Peruvian equivalent, much the samenumber. Beyond or between these two along the eastern seaboard of theUSA, in the Caribbean, in south Mexico and central America, inVenezuela and Colombia, were various predominantly or semi-agriculturaltribes which together added another 5m or 6m to the continental total.Beyond these were the food-gatherers living in the immense and emptylandscape of the western USA and Canada, in the Brazilian jungles and thedesolate wastes of the southern Argentine. Altogether, counting every littlegroup from the Eskimo of the Arctic fringe to the Yahgan of Tierra delFuego, there may have been a million of them.

This world, its people and its achievements, were now to be mauled,degraded and largely destroyed by a handful of ruthless adventurers fromacross the Atlantic.

*

The first impact of the Europeans was deadly. Within a century ofColumbus reaching the Antilles the population of the Americas had beenreduced by a fifth. Allowing for the fact that considerable areas andpopulations remained (as yet) unaffected by the invasion for example themillion natives north of the Rio Grande this translates into an averagedrop of about a quarter in the occupied zone with some really catastrophicdeclines in particular places.

It is easy but entirely wrong to blame the Spaniards for this demographicdisaster. Their combination of brutality, cupidity and religiosity makethem popular scapegoats, but they probably killed no more people in thecourse of their conquest of the continent than the Aztecs had in theirwars of the preceding quarter century. The killers, in truth, were not men

but microbes. Smallpox and measles were unknown in pre-ColumbanAmerica and Amerindians had no resistance to them. In the course of the16th century repeated epidemics of these diseases swept through the nativepopulation cutting it back again and again until, towards the end of theperiod, a new equilibrium was established. The new level was usually aboutthree quarters of the pre-Columban figure, though it could be better orworse than this.

Fully developed agriculture,V174Yth~4 average density between I and 3 per km’

_______ Modern frontiers

Fig. 4.3 The Americas. agricultural dei’elopmenr and population densities in AD 1500

Aztec Empii

Food-gathering only,density less than 01 per km2

Predominantly agricultural,density averaging 04 per km2

Inca Empi:

272 273

One area that fared much, much worse was the Caribbean. This waslargely because the individual populations of the islands were relativelysmall and completely isolated. They were quickly reduced to the lowabsolute levels from which recovery is difficult. Here the Spaniards’ policyof rounding up the natives and working them to exhaustion may have beena significant additional factor, causing the epidemics to spread laster andkill more, cutting the time available for adaptation and so reducing thetime to extinction. For extinction is the late that overtook the natives ofthe Caribbean. By the middle of the 17th century they were a vanishedrace: a community 300,000 strong had been simply wiped out.

In terms of absolute numbers the mortality on the mainland was fargreater, the drop there being of the order of 2Sm. However, though theloss was terrible, the size of the populations involved protected them fromannihilation and the continuance of the native stock in most areas wasnever in any doubt. The two vice-royalties which constituted the Spanish-American Empire were erected on the same demographic foundations asthe Aztec and Inca Empires: indeed it is no exaggeration to say that thestructure of post-Columban America in its first hundred years was entirelydetermined by the pre-Columban population map.

The Spaniards and their diseases did not take long to penetrate to themainland centres of population. In 1518 Cortez broke through to the Azteccapital Tenochtitlan: the next year, as smallpox raged among the defenders, he stormed the city house by house. Tenochtitlan became MexicoCity, the Aztec Empire became the nucleus of the Vice-royalty of NewSpain. The Inca Empire lasted until 1532. when Pizarro reached its northern frontier. This time the microbes had outmarched the men: the wholeAndean zone had been ravaged by smallpox several years earlier and itspopulation was already falling when Pizarro moved in for the kill. Hisoverthrow of the Incas cleared the way for the creation of the Vice-royaltyof Peru. Both vice-royalties expanded their frontiers to include the contiguous settled areas, until by the end of the 16th century they containedbetween them some 9m subjects. As the continental total had now fallen toII Sm, this amounted to nearly 80°,, of the population of the Americas.

At this point the Spanish advance came to a halt. The remaining areaswere too thinly populated to support an administration and their exclusionseemed no blemish on the Iberian claim to ownership of the entire continent. But though the other European powers were prepared to recognizethat Spain ruled all she occupied they would not concede that her sovereignty extended over the rest. In the first half of the 17th century theBritish, French and Dutch all established settlements in the New World indefiance of Spanish prohibition. The second phase in America’s colonialera had begun.

The rule of Spain in the Americas was the rule of an elite: by 1600 some025m Spaniards the successors and descendants of perhaps 01 m transatlantic migrants were established as a master race over 9m natives. The30,000 Portuguese in Brazil formed a similar ruling class, though in theircase, because natives were thin on the ground in this part of the Americas,most of the lower orders consisted of specially imported African slaves.

A quite different concept lay behind the north European colonial effortof the next half-century. New France, Nova Scotia, New England and NewNetherlands were exactly what their names implied — all-white communities. living by their own labour and intended to grow into replicas of themother countries.

It is instructive to look at present-day America to see how the differentcolonial concepts have fared. As Fig. 4.4 shows, the Amerindian contribution is effectively restricted to the meso-American—Andean strip whichformed the demographic backbone of pre-Columban America and of theSpanish Empire. The rule of Spain was, in every sense, conservative. Therest of the continent has been restocked from Europe or Africa. It is withthese movements the migration from Europe and the slave trade thatwe are now concerned.

The slave trade first. This grew naturally out of Portugal’s 15th-centuryinterest in African exploration. The slave trade was one means of financingthe voyages, particularly as slaves proved to be an ideal labour force forthe sugar plantations Portuguese entrepreneurs set up in Madeira and theAzores during this period. After its discovery, Brazil turned out to be aneven better place for growing sugar and ultimately the Caribbean islandsproved best of all. At this point the trade ceased to be purely Portuguese.For though the British and French initially founded all-white settlements inthe Caribbean (when they were able to wrest suitable islands from Spain)these colonies were, as originally conceived, an economic failure. Onlywhen the Brazilian system of sugar growing was introduced did they startto flourish.

The change came around 1650. The earlier settlements contained about50,000 colonists by then (as many as the colonies in North America) andonly a few thousand blacks. Now the British, French and Dutch began tobring in African slaves on a big scale. By the end of the century there weresomething like 300,000 of them in the Caribbean (relatively few in theislands that remained to Spain) as against 200,000 Europeans (at least halfof whom were in the Spanish sector). Rapid though this growth may seemit was completely outclassed by the staggering expansion that took place inthe 18th century, during which some 275m slaves were landed and sold inthe Caribbean markets. This was the high point, though the 19th centuryadded, legally or illegally, another 075m, which brought the total input forthe area during the period 1500—1850 to 4m. Disease, brutality and an

274275

unfavourable sex ratio meant that the African population was less than thecumulative input nearer 3m than 4m and it was only when slavery wasabolished that the Negro community in the Caribbean became self-sustaining. But by the middle of the 19th century the repopulation of theCaribbean was essentially complete: the islands, with the exception ofCuba, had assumed the predominantly African complexion that they haveretained ever since.

Next to the Caribbean the biggest market for slaves was Brazil (see Fig.4.5). Either the climate or the overseers were kinder here and the Africansdid better. Up to the mid 19th century 35m Negroes were imported: theyalways held their own numerically and in the last century have multipliedrapidly. Where there has been so much mixing of stock it becomes very

Fig. 4.5 The African contribution to the demography oft/ic Americas: s/are imports1550—1850 and the pitcem-da,’ populations of African stock

VenezuelaMexico

1500 population,square Im.~ 130m

~20m 1975 population(double scale valueslOm for USA and Brazil)

Amerindian component in 1975

Ecuador, Peru& Bolivia

Chile ~

Present-dayAfrican

populations

SlavesUSA q imported20m from

Africa

O5m0-Sm

Caribbean bbean 4mI 8m

0-75m

3-Sm

0-25mBrazilTotal9.5Brazil million

SUm

Total 95m

Fig. 4.4 The Amnerindian contribution to the demography oft/ic Americas 277

unfavourable sex ratio meant that the African population was less than thecumulative input nearer 3m than 4m and it was only when slavery wasabolished that the Negro community in the Caribbean became self-sustaining. But by the middle of the 19th century the repopulation of theCaribbean was essentially complete: the islands, with the exception ofCuba, had assumed the predominantly African complexion that they haveretained ever since.

Next to the Caribbean the biggest market for slaves was Brazil (see Fig.4.5). Either the climate or the overseers were kinder here and the Africansdid better. Up to the mid 19th century 35m Negroes were imported: theyalways held their own numerically and in the last century have multipliedrapidly. Where there has been so much mixing of stock it becomes very

Fig. 4.5 The African contribution to the detnographr of the Anierica.c: slave imports1550—1850 and the present-dar populations of African stock

VenezuelaMexico

1500 population,square Im.~ 30m

20m 1975 population(double scale valuestOrn for USA and Brazil)

Amerindian component in 1975

Ecuador, Peru& Bolivia

Chile .i

Present-dayAfrican

populations

SlavesUSA q imported20m from

Africa

0~5mO5m

Caribbean ribbean 4mI 8m

075m

3 Sm

025mBrazilTotal9.5Brazil million

50m

Total 95m

Fig. 4.4 TI,c’ Amerindian contribution to the demography of the Americas 277

difficult to define the black element in the population, but it is generallyagreed that the African contribution to the Brazilian gene pool is about500~, which is the equivalent of 50m individuals today. Compare this IS-fold increase with a less than 5-fold increase of the Caribbean Negro.

Best of all for the African was North America. Only about O4mAfricans were landed there and the use of slaves never spread outside thesouthern states. Nevertheless the number of black citizens of the UnitedStates today is near enough 25m and. even if this is reduced to a geneticequivalent or 20m to allow for the undoubted white component in this‘coloured’ population, it still represents an amazing 50-fold increase in twocenturies. The North American Negro has become one or Africa’s mostsignificant contributions to the demography of the New World.

When we turn to the European contribution the contrasts are striking. In

Fig. 4.61500—1975

278

The European coniribut. ion to the demography of the A,nerkas: immigration

the first place it was voluntary: apart from a rew thousand British convictssentenced to ‘transportation’ in the 17th and 18th centuries all theEuropean settlers went to America because they wanted to. In the secondplace the flow was largely to North America: four out or every five or themigrants landed in the USA or Canada. Lastly it was very slow to getstarted. Whereas more than three quarters of the Africans brought to theAmericas had arrived by 1800, less than 3°,, of the Europeans had. The‘Great Migration’ is a comparatively recent’story.

To take the early days first. In the 16th century the movement wasexclusively Iberian, with 100,000 Spanish settling in the Spanish-AmericanEmpire and 10,000 Portuguese in Brazil. Not till the 17th century did theNorth Europeans join in. Then about 100,000 of them headed for theCaribbean, where most of them died of fever within a few years. At thesame time another 100,000 settled on the Atlantic seaboard of NorthAmerica: there life, though harsh, was healthy and the result was a community that was soon multiplying vigorously. By 1700 there were 0’3mcolonists in North America as compared to Im ‘whites’ in Latin America.The net transatlantic movement for the century amounted to some350,000, which means that the cumulative total since Columbus’s day wasstill under 05m.

Transit figures for the Atlantic remained within this order of magnitudeduring the 18th century. North America absorbed another 04m migrantsand ended the period with a white population of 45m. Latin America tookin 02m immigrants and ended up with a slightly smaller number of whites,about 4m. It was not until well into the 19th century that the scale of thetraffic began to change. When it did the upturn was sharp. From an average of less than 10,000 a year in the opening two decades of the 19thcentury the migration rate rose to double this figure in the 1820s and thenmoved up to near the 100,000 mark in the late 1830s. It shot way past thislevel in the decade following the Irish famine of 1846 8 it touched thehalf million mark in 1854 and though it fell back below 200,000 duringthe 1860s the retreat was only temporary: throughout the last quarter ofthe century it was as often over as under the half million. The peak wasreached in the decade before the First World War, when the rate was overa million a year. The outbreak of war caused a sharp decline and shortlyafter its end the United States imposed an annual limit of 350,000, soonreduced to 160,000, on immigrants from outside the Americas. As four outof five of the pre-war immigrants had the USA as their immediate orultimate destination this effectively cut back the continental input to about300,000 a year, the level it has averaged ever since.

The ‘Great Migration’ of 1845—1914 brought 41m people to theAmericas. All bar 6m of them arrived in the north and of the 35m who did33m of them settled in the USA. This input, combined with a high rate of

Canada 9(4 net)

q

~J Mostly British IslesUSA via British IslesCanada S (nearly half Irish)

USA DGerm~Y and42 ~ Eastern Europe

Mediterranean Europe— (mostly Italy)

IJ Mediterranean Europe— (especially IberiaC and Italy)Total 65m

Brazil 5

Argentina6

279

Z 100 against the USA’s recent l0~ are those which have retained an importantAfrican Amerindian element in their populations: Mexico, the Central American

republics, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. By contrastMulatto .the rates for the South American countries that are most truly Latin, I.e.

80 have populations drawn almost exclusively from Mediterranean Europe,

like Argentina and Uruguay. are nearer to North American than meso70 American or C!entral Andean values. Fig. 4.7 shows the effect of this: since

1914 the white segment has been contracting and the most dynamic60 European element in the population of the Americas has been the Amerindian

Mestizo. Which is as it should be: it is. after all, the Red Man’s continent.so

40

30Amerindian

20Mestizo

10

01500 1600 1700 1800 1900 1975

Fig. 4.7 The .4,nericas, el/zn/c structure 1500—1975

natural increase, boosted the US share of the continental population totalfrom 400,, to 55°c. The absolute figures are perhaps even more impressive:the population south of the Rio Grande nearly tripled (from 30m in 1845 itgrew to 80m in 1914): the population of the USA quintupled (from 20m in1845 to lOOm in 1914). The effect on the ethnic structure of the continent’spopulation was equally dramatic: the European segment expanded at theexpense of both the African and Amerindian sectors (Fig. 4.7).

The prodigious growth of the USA in the late 19th century made it theworld’s most powerful nation: during the 20th century its material powerhas continued to expand but its population growth has slowed. LatinAmerica’s has accelerated. As a result the population division betweenAmerica north of the Rio Grande and America south of it is now fallingback towards the 40 60 distribution that existed on the eve of the GreatMigration. By the end of the century when the expectation is that therewill be something over 800m people in the Americas the division is likelyto be 33 66.

Strictly speaking this comeback is not really Latin, it is Amerindian. Thecountries with the highest rate of increase 3°~ per annum or more as

280

THE AMERICAS AREA 1Canada10-Urn km’

The first Americans had no option butto pass through Canada as quickly aspossible, the land being almost entirelycovered by the Wisconsin ice cap.Gradually, as the ice retreated northward. Canadian territory suitable forpermanent colonization became available and the peopling of the countrycould begin. The first inhabitants camefrom the hunting communities established on the Great Plains to the south:later they were joined by the only twogroups of pre-Columban Americanswho clearly arrived from Asia long aftereveryone else, the Indians of the Pacificnorth-west and the Eskimos. Betweenthem these three groups brought thetotal population of Canada up to 01 mby AD 1000 and, with the addition ofsome maize-growing tribes to the StLawrence area, to 0’2m by AD 1500.Contact with Europeans reduced thistotal to O’Im by 1900, but happily the20th century has seen a more than complete recovery, the current figure beingabout 0’25m,

Leaving aside the abortive Norsediscovery of AD 1000 we can take thethe years following Cartier’s voyages(15345) as the period in whichEuropeans acquired a working knowledge of Canada’s Atlantic coast.Despite this there were no more than afew hundred Europeans in Canada atany one time before 1650 and these weremostly fishermen temporarily established on the east coast. Proper settlement began in the mid 17th century.

In its first hundred years it was essentially French and centred on the StLawrence. By the time of the Britishconquest in 1760 a population of 70.000had been bred from just over 10,000French immigrants, most of whom arrived before 1700. Frontier fertilityproduced a birth rate of 50 per 1,000and a growth rate of 25°, a year, Thisgrowth continued after the Britishtakeover, which virtually ended Frenchimmigration. There were 0’2m FrenchCanadians in 1800, 0’7m in 1850 and Imby the mid- 1870s. despite the emigrationof around 0’ Im in the mid 19th century.Even so, the Canadian population ofFrench origin fell from about threequarters of the total in the mid 18th century to 30”, a century later, remaining atthat proportion until recently.

Before the later 18th century. theBritish had little impact on Canada,Though they held the far north (RupertsLand), they made virtually no settlement there, while their claims on thecast coast, which amounted toNewfoundland and Nova Scotia, produced very little in the way of results atfirst, Nova Scotia, which received 2,500British settlers in 1749, still had a Britishpopulation of less than 20,000 in themid-1770s, while Newfoundland’s population was only half that. The arrivalof some 35,000 Loyalists exiles fromRepublican America was to doublethe British element in the Canadianpopulation, which finally drew levelwith the French element soon after 1800,

283


The French Canadians are one of the best recorded populations in the world. Frequentcensuses thirt i-six between 1666 and 1760 and a good ecclesiastical registration.st~ctenl provide an al,nost complete record from the 17th century. This Li sununarized inHubert Charhonneau (ed), La Population de Québec: etudes retrospectives (1973).and in English hr J. Hen ripin and Y. Peron in and Revelle.

After the British conquest there “crc cou,tts in Canada’ proper in 1765, Nova Scotia1766—7, New Bruns;”ick 1767, Lo,rcr Canada 1784 and Prince Edward Lcland in 1798and 1805. Upper Canada act uallt’ held an annual census in 1826—42, other parts joiningin from tune to time. A general C’anadian census “as tnore or less established in 1851.and regularly on a decennial basis from 1861. Nenfoundland emphasized its separateness ki’ producing a series running 1845, 1857. 1869, 1874. 1884 before conforming.The Jirderal census has been quinquennial since 1951.

Volutne I of the 1931 Census has afull kit of all previous counts and estimates, andpost-1851 ,naterial Li sum,narizcd hr M. C. Urquhart and K. A. H Buckley inHistorical Statistics of Canada (1965). Useful general sources are: F. Verret, LaPopulation du Canada (1953) and J. Warkentin (ed). Canada: A GeographicalInterpretation (1968).

The basic source Jbr the pre—European population of Canada ~5 J. Mooney inSmithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 80, 7 (1928).

Migration from Britain to Canadagained momentum after 1815, with 05msettlers arriving in the period 18 15—60.This, plus natural increase, was sumcient to push the population up to itsfirst respectable totals: Im by 1825. 2mby 1840 and 3m by 1860. For the rest ofthe 19th century the story is an odd one:very substantial numbers of migrantscontinued to arrive at Canadian ports(nearly Im in the l880s alone) but theyleft for the USA even laster. Between1880 and 1900 there was a net annualloss of 20,000, which is why a population that multiplied five times in the firsthalf of the 19th century could manageonly to double in the second half.

In the 20th century the migrationbalance became positive again. The twogreat periods of immigration were theyears around the First World War (l’2mnet immigrants between 1900 and 1930)and after the Second World War (2mnet immigrants between 1945 and 1975).The origins of these migrants changedsignificantly as the century advanced.The proportion of Canadians of ‘otherEuropean origin’, which was only 7”, inthe late 19th century. had risen to 26°,,by 1971, with French Canadians slipping slightly to 28°, and ‘Canadians ofBritish origin’ to 44’, (not forgetting theoriginal Canadians at 12”,,).

Canada

30?

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 C 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 t0 p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 i0

— .-i ~4 ,-

1975~_l

The Americas Area I

North America was not an importantsector of the Amerindian world. Thoughit constituted half the continental landmass it contained only I m people, 7”~ ofthe 1492 population of the Americas.figures which, if Canada is excluded, improve only marginally to 0’8m and 6”,,in a quarter of the total area. Culturally,too, the North American Indian was abackwoodsman: the savage splendoursof Mexico and Peru had few counterparts in the simple hunting, fishing andsemi-agricultural communities that werescattered across the present USA.

This very backwardness protected theNorth American Indian from exploitation in the first century of the postColumban era. A few disastrous attempts at exploration convinced theSpaniards that there was little to begained from attempting to expand theirEmpire in this direction. As the 16thcentury opened, the total white population of the area was limited to a fewhundred bored Spanish soldiers garrisoning the forts of Florida and theoutpost established in New Mexico.

Over the next half century the situation was transformed. In 1607 Englishsettlers founded Jamestown and thecolony of Virginia. In 1620 by whichtime the population of Virginia hadreached 2,400 ninety-nine ‘pilgrimslanded from the Maiflower and established the first of the New Englandcolonies. By 1650 Virginia (with neighbouring Maryland) contained morethan 20,000 people, New England30.000. By 1700 the entire Atlantic sea-

USA9-4m km2(including Alaska (l’52m km2) butexcluding Hawaii (0’02m km2)

board from Maine to South Carolina hadbecome British North America, a landof some 028m people.

The population in 1700 represented atransatlantic migration by some 0Im,of whom 80°,, were British, l0°~ unwilling Africans. In the next century therewas, at least as far as the white population was concerned, relatively lessmigration and a great deal more multiplication. Natural increase reached annual rates of 3°c, sufficient to take thewhite total to Im by 1750, 2m by 1775and 43m by 1800. (Black slavesincreased these figures by 0’2m. 05mand Im respectively.) It was not fornothing that Malthus used theAmericans as proof of the irrationalreproductive capacity of human beingsleft to their own devices.

It was Ireland and not America thatproved Malthus right, and it was theQight of the Irish from demographicdisaster, at first merely threatening butthen all too actual, that began to makethe United States a land of immigrantsagain. Since natural increase began tofall from the early 19th century this immigration played an increasingly important part in sustaining the growth rateduring the period up to the outbreak ofthe First World War, The Irish beganarriving in America in significant numbers in 1820; after the famine of 1845the movement became a stampede.Figures reached the 02—0-4m range inevery one of the next five years.

Meanwhile one form of immigrationhad been definitely stopped, the landing

THE AMERICAS AREA 2The Continental

The ContinentalUSA

00~00000000000000000000000000000000 0u~ 0 U’ 0 too too to

U’ 0. w00 — .-~ — —

1975~_I

The Americas Area 2

of slaves. But though the prohibition ofI 808 was effective as far as slave imports were concerned (there were no significant additions to the cumulativetotal of 0-4m after that date) slaveryitself remained a legal and highly important institution in the southern states.By 1860 the Negro population ofAmerica amounted to 45m (90°, ofthem slaves) and the southern states’ determination to protect and when possiblepromote their peculiar institution’ wasimperilling the union. The nation, now30m strong, faced its first major crisis.

The Civil War, which was fought witha population balance two to one infavour of the North. killed some 062mAmericans (mostly by disease) andresolved the slavery question. It alsomarked a demographic turning point.Immigration, massive though it was.could no longer entirely counteract a fallin the native birth rate and overallgrowth dropped to 25°, a year or less.Yet the absolute figures for immigrationcontinued to be amazing. As the Irishflood dwindled it was replaced by newoverflows from (he equally poor landsof eastern Europe. Up to 1890. four outof five American immigrants came fromnorth-west Europe; between 1890 and1920 this fell to one in four, while two inthree now came from the Russian andAustro-Hungarian empires or theMediterranean lands. It was an extraordinarily various mixture of Europeansthat pushed the annual figures to theirall-time high of l-285m in 1907.

The great days of immigration cameto an end in the 1920s indeed by theend of that decade more people wereleaving America than were entering it.The expansion of the economy sloweddown and hostility grew to an influxwhich, if it was white, was hardlyWASP. In 1921 Congress limited immigration to a maximum of a third of amillion a year, and three years later cutthe figure again, to a sixth of a million.

By that date two Americans out of everyfive were either foreign-born or had animmigrant parent, the net total of immigrants in the previous hundred yearshad reached 35m and these immigrantsand their descendants accounted for halfthe total growth of the United Statesduring the period.

It was not migration alone thatchanged the face of America in the century after 1825. A great drive westwardreduced the East Coast population from97’, of the total in 1790 to 41”, in 1910.This change, which was largely the workof white native-born Americans (themigrants went to the cities, the blacksstayed in the south), laid the basis forthe present picture of populationdistribution. Considered state by state(see table) it is an extraordinarily evenone, with the top three places now heldby representatives of the three mainpopulation concentrations, Californiafor the west, New York for the east andTexas for the south.

Though the heroic age of Americandemography came to an end with theFirst World War, migrations both external and internal have continued to playan important part in reshapingAmerican society. The blacks havemoved from the south to the cities of thenorth; their numbers have risen impressively from 9m in 1900 to 15m in 1950and 25m today. External migrants havecome from Puerto Rico and Mexico,producing communities with currentpopulations of I-75m and 7m respectively. The overall growth rate hasreceived disproportionate support fromthese minority groups but even so hasbeen falling steadily. It is now wellbelow I”, per annum. This causes nodistress, in fact ‘zero population growth’is being actively promoted as a desirablegoal. Education has certainly changedattitudes, though personal concerns areprobably responsible for more of the fallthan global worries: babies are now

Vermont (1791)Kentucky(I792)

viewed as expensive consumer durables on impulse. And there’s nothing wrongto be budgeted for rather than bought with that.


The estimate o/’ In; A,nerindians north of the Rio Grande which breaks do.,’,, into0-2w in Canada. aos,., in Alaska a,,d 0-75 ,n in tile rest of the continental USA goeshack at least as far as J. Moone,’ (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 80, 7(1928)): it seenis to he generalh,’ accepted. though the Califbrnia school of rei’isionistshas issued a trial balloon in favour of 20n, (sic). The present population qf 06wrepresents a recoven’ front the all-time low of 05,;, reached in 1925.

For the colonial period the records are cotnparativeli’ speaking excellent and fix thepopulation of’ the individual colontes ,.‘ithin narrow lin,its. The first federal census li-asheld in 1790 and there ha,’e bee,, regular and reliable censuses through the US territorye,’ert’ ten 3-ears since then. The adjusttnetns needed to conipensate /br hou,,dari’changes are, as the table shoii-s - surprisingly stnall.

The Bureau o/’the Census pours out inforniation:for instance Historical Statistics ofthe United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (1960). Other basic sources are: W. S.Thompson and P. K. Whelpton. Population Trends in the United States (1933): C,and L B. Tauher. The Changing Population of the United States (1958): D. J. Bague,The Population of the United States (1959); H. T. Eldridge and 13. S. Thomas.Population Redistribution and Economic Growth. United States, 1870—1950; Ill(1964). On tnigration there is E. P. Hutchinson. Immigrants and Their Children:1850—1950 (1956).

A great deal of all this inJbrtnation has bee,, ,rell su,,,n,ari:ed in two places: J.Potter. ‘The Growth o/’ Population in America, 1700—1860. in * Glass and Everslev.and the chapter on population in L. E. Davis et at.. American Economic Growth(1972).

POPULATION OF THE CONTINENTAL USA(in millions, to the nearest ten thousand, except for rounding of the totals)

1700 1775 1800 1850 1900 1950 1975

ConnecticutDelawareGeorgiaMarylandMassachusettsNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaVirginia

002 020 0-25 037004 006 009003 0-16 0-91

003 023 0-34 0-580-07 0-34 058 1000-01 008 018 0-320-01 012 0-21 049002 0-19 059 310001 025 0-48 0870-02 027 060 2-31001 006 0-07 015001 017 0-35 067007 0-50 089 1-12

091 201019 0-32222 3451-19 234281 4-69041 0-531-88 4~847-27 14-831-89 406630 1050043 0-791-34 2-121-85 3~32

3100584.934-105830-827-32

18-125.45

11-830-932824-97

015 0-31 0-34 038 047022 0-98 2-15 295 340

‘on

Minnesota ((856)Oregon (1856)Kansas (1861)West Virginia (1863)Nevada (IBM)Nebraska (1867)Colorado (1876)North Dakota (1889)South Dakota (1889)Montana (1889)Washington (1889)Idaho (1890)Wyoming (1890)Utah (18%)Oklahoma (1907)New Mexico (1912)Arizona (1912)Alaska (1959)District of ColumbiaTerritories (whites only)

TOTAL POPULATION OF THE

l3coLoNIEs USAOFTHE

TIME

Whites in areas laterannexed to the USAIndiansAlaska

TOTAL POPULATION

WITHIN THECONTINENTAL

USA, PRESENT BOUNDARY

1700 1775 1800 1850 1900 !950 1975011 100 202 329 419

198 416 795 1076052 138 268 379099 252 393 531061 155 2(8 235085 482 87! IllS077 183 306 }6l058 069 09! 106068 311 396 476021 131 191 212040 241 637 916009 0-53 277 836021 305 77! (224019 223 262 28703! 207 344 460009 149 1059 2119

175 298 39304! 1-52 2291-47 191 227096 20! 1800-04 016 059107 133 1-550-54 133 2530-32 062 0-640-40 0-65 0680-24 0-59 0750-52 2-38 3-54016 059 082009 029 037028 069 121

223 27!068 115075 2-22

035

0-0! 005 028 080 072006 009 I-I

028 250 530 2330 76-00 150-00 21000

0-02 0-05 0-06070 065 0600-05 0-05 004

By 7000 ac the food-gathering of theMexicans was beginning to assume theform of ‘incipient cultivation’, whichmeant that meso-America had startedon the road to civilization. By themiddle of the 2nd millennium BC thisroad had led to village farming and apopulation of 0-Sm; by the middle of the1st millennium BC to towns, an elaborate religious system and a population ofIm; and by the middle of the 1st millennium A D to city states with masstveceremonial centres, scribes capable ofaccurate calendrical inscriptions (if notquite of true writing) and a totalpopulation of 2m. The culminatingpoint was reached in the 15th centurywith the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan. Theirempire extracted tribute from more thanhalf the Sm people then living in thearea.

What happened next is like a time-warp story from science fiction. In 1518the Spanish adventurer Hernan Cortezlanded on the Gulf Coast to find himselfin a world of pyramids and humansacrifice, of stone idols and flint knives.There could be no compromise betweenCatholic Spain and this fantasticneolithic structure. The Aztecs hurledthemselves forward to be slaughtered bythe arquebuses, swords and pikes ofCortez’ tiny army. And also by disease.For even more deadly than theirweapons were the new microbes theinvaders had brought with them smallpox. influenza and measles. Within afew years all Mexico was under Spanish

rule and its population was falling fast.The decline in native numbers con

tinued until the beginning of the 17thcentury. when the figures stabilized atabout two thirds of the pre-Columbanmaximum. It stayed much the same forthe next two centuries, during whichtime the Spanish element increased from0-Im (in 1600) to Im (in 1800) and theMestizo element grew to a similar total.During the 19th century there was amodest rise in the number of Indians (to4m), a considerable increase in the number of Spaniards (to 2m) and a massiverise in the Mestizo population (to 7m,more than half the 1900 total of 13’Sm).This ratio — 55% Mestizo, 30%Amerindian. 15% white — has provedrehiiikably stable, presumably becausethe tendency of the Mestizos to reclassify themselves as white balances theirhigher reproduction rate.

In the first half of the 20th century thegrowth in Mexico’s population wasrather slower than might have been expected: l00°~, as compared, for example,with Central America’s l30’~. A short-term explanation of this is to be foundin the events of the l9lOs, when abloody civil war and the influenza pandemic reduced the 1910 census population of 15-2m to one of 14-8m in 1921.Emigration to the USA also played itspart. There were already 0-2m Mexicansliving in the USA in 1910: by 1930 thischicano population (immigrants and descendants) numbered I-Sm. Since 1950growth rates both at home and in the

Tennessee (1796)

Ohio (1803)Louisiana (1812)Indiana (1816)Mississippi (1817)Illinois(l818)Alabama (1819)Maine(1820)Missouri (1821)Arkansas (1836)Michigan (1837)Florida (1845)Texas (1845)Iowa (1846)Wisconsin (1848)California (1850)

THE AMERICAS AREA SMexico2-Om km2

0-300-04 0-06 0-13

1-00 3-25 6-00 23-50 76-00 150-00 210-00-‘fin

USA have been very high. The Mexican I 25~. in 25 years, and the number oftotal has shot up to 60m, an increase of chicanos has risen to 7m.


The size of the population of Mexico in 1492 has lateR’ heco,ne the subject of’ muchacademic argument. There are Iwo basic approaches to the problem: one (exemplifiedby K S. MacNeish on the Tehuacan “alley in P. Deprez (ed), Population andEconomics (1970)) seeks an average dens ity figure by looking at the cultural, economicand archaeological evidence. The other utilizes post-Conquest documents, particularlytaxation records (see S. F. Cook and W. Borah in Essays in Populalion History I(1970).

The debate is summarized ~ * Sanchez-A lhornoz and by * Stewart. The main,n’oponcntc ate * Rosetjhkti (besides the genei’al i’tfri’ctjc see cttvo his La Poblaciôn dcAmerica en 1492 (1967)) and S. F. Cook and W. Borah (in The Indian Population ofCentral Mexico 1531 1610 (1960) and mans’ other places). The point at issue is this:‘las the population in Mexico In 1492,10 more than Sm (Rosenblat) or was it “lore than30,,i (Cook and Borah)7 Comparison nit/i other parts of the world at comparable levelsof culture leads us to throw in our lot with Rosenhlat. This saves us frotn having to facethe second improbability in the C’ook—Borah thesis, a fall of 90°. in the course of the , I

16th century. History knott’s of no population of comparable magnitude suffering sucha catastrophic decline.

After 1600 Mexico ~s population is relatively nell documented and little debated. Theprimary sources are sum,narized by Cook and Borah in Essays in Population History I(1971), while the 1960 Census Summary Volume gives a list of the results of the largenumber of counts and estimates. The first proper census ,t’as taken in 1895; othersfollowed in 1900, 1910, 1921 and the series became regular and decennial in 1930.

10

S

.6

4

2

70

60

Mexico

Mexico City MEX(C9(Tenochtitlan

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 fl 000000000 Oh’ 0 tOO ‘00 too toO•OJ 0J~CD~0 .-iOJOD .tO 0 0 0 000 — — — —

1975

The Americas AreaS

THE AMERICAS AREA 4Central AmericaO-52m km2

Despite its name and position CentralAmerica has usually been a back~ater.The one exception occurred during thedevelopment of the northern. mesoAmerican focus of Amerindian civilization to which the top tier of CentralAmerican states particularly Guatemala and Belize, but to some extentEl Salvador and Honduras as wellmade a significant contribution. Thepopulation rise associated with thisdevelopment was by American standards considerable: there was anincrease from the 25,000 hunters andgatherers of 5000 Bc to a peasantrynumbering 0-3m by AD I and OSm byAl, 800. By this last date the Maya. thepeople who lived in the South Mexican—Guatemalan region, had brought theirculture to its ‘classic’ peak.

The Maya are famous for theirpyramids and their dating inscriptions.Both activitiescame to an abrupt halt inthe 9th century, which has led someAmericanists to postulate a demographic collapse at this time. They find acause for this either in an invasion bybloodthirsty Mexicans or. rather moreplausibly, in soil exhaustion. Actuallythere is no reason to think that anythingmuch happened except that people gaveup a religious activity that had gotcompletely out of hand. After all, theEgyptians stopped building pyramidspresumably for just this sort of reason.not because there were too few of themto carry on.

A real disruption occurred at the

beginning of the 16th century whenthe first conquistadors arrived on thescene. There were then about 0-Smnatives in Central America, a numberthat European diseases and rapacitygradually reduced to less than 0-6m. Theloss was made up by 1750. and by 1800the population was over the million. Itwas heterogeneous now: a fifth Spanish.a fifth Mestizo and three-fifths Amerindian. Between these fifths a pockethas to be found for Africans thoughthe total input of slaves into thearea was small no more than a fewtens of thousands.

Since 1800 the story can be told intwo words: multiplication and mixture.Growth rates that were about averagefor Latin America took the totalpopulation to nearly 4m by the beginning of the 20th century and to over 9mby 1950. Since then rates of increase ashigh as any in the world have boostedthe figure to 18-Sm. The steepest part ofthe curve may be past now the lastround of censuses turned in figures thatwere fractionally below expectationbut even so the prediction is still for atotal of more than 30m by the end of thecentury.

The Central Americans of todaydivide their loyalties between six sovereign states and two semi-colonialanomalies the American Canal Zonewith a population of 45,000. and Belize(former British Honduras: populationIOMOO in 1850, 40,000 in 1900 and140,000 today). The table below shows

Central America32?

g ~ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 Qo0iO0u~0~~0U2O~to r- ~ to 0o o — — — —m ~ 1975—i

294The A,nerkas Area 4

the trends in the sovereign states since1850. The only important point to noteis the southward shift in the area’scentre of gravity. Guatemala. whichprobably contained half the populationtotal in the Mayan and early colonialperiods and still had 400. in 1850. now

has less than a third. The shift in ethnicproportions has been to a MThizomajoril~J55%)EWiilfihe remaii~der —

apart’irom a spriñk1i~Thrblãëks —

dividing equally between whites andAmerindians,

THE AMERICAS AREA 5The CaribbeanIslandsfr24m km2

area(000km2) 1850 1900 1925 1950 1975

109 0-9 1-4 2-0 3-0 S’S21 04 0-9 1-4 1-9 4-I

0-4 0-6 0-9 -4 2-70-3 0-5 0-7 II 2-I0-1 0-3 0-5 0-9 2-00-I 0-3 0-4 0-8 1-7

The Caribbean islands were among thelast areas in the Americas to be settledby man. The first arrivals, the Ciboney.were simple food-gatherers who driftedon to the scene towards the end of the1st millennium ac: there cannot havebeen more than a few thousand of them.They were followed early in theChristian era by the agriculturalArawak from the area of Venezuela.The Arawak gradually spread throughthe islands in the next thousand years.driving the Ciboney into the remote corners where the first Europeans foundthem. By then another Venezuelanpeople, the Caribs, were just beginningto move into the Windwards, but theycontributed little to the 300.000 totalthat can be postulated for the WestIndies at the end of the 15th century.This consisted almost entirely ofArawak of whom there were perhaps100,000 on Hispaniola and some 50,000each on Cuba. Puerto Rica andJamaica.

Into this island world, in 1492, cameColumbus and his crew. Nowhere didthe arrival of the European havea more devastating impact. To getthe labour they needed the Spaniardssoon resorted to brutal razzias: thesimple patterns of native life were entirely disrupted and a system of nearslavery imposed in their place. Evenmore important, the diseases the Europeans had brought with them repeatedly decimated this wilting societyuntil by the 1570s its numbers had been

reduced to less than a tenth of theiroriginal level. I oday a Ié~9housand

l3ominicans make dubious claim toAmerindian ancestry but effectively theoriginal Caribbean population haddwindled to zero by the mid 17th century.

The second quarter of the 17th century saw the final collapse not only ofthe native population of the Caribbeanbut of the Iberian claim to ownership ofthe whole New World. In the Caribbeanthe British took St Kitts ~weB~bidos,thFF~EWGuadëloupe_and’M~?tJñiqueand the_Dutc,~ Curaçao: byl l90”therewere 3o,ooo turopeans in the area, athird t em British, nearly a thirdFreW”Thd no more thanThtliirdSpanish, though Spain still held all thelarger islands. As an attempt at directsettlement the invasion was a failure.The favoured crop, tobacco, grew betterin North America and the secondchoice. sugar, needed slave labour, notEuropean farmers. As the Negroes were $_ ~-

~jpped in the Europeans left. The resultwas a big increase in numbers (from0’2m in 1650 to 0-Sm in 1700) butafallin the Euro can component that wasnot ely proportional (fr~iW75%to2O~)_ but absolute (from”130 to 4~ The repopulatioW of theearibbean islands with a predominantlyAfrican stock was already achieved bythe beginning of the 18th century.

Politically and economically the 18thcentury was a period of relative stability. By its opening the British and

297

THE POPULATIONS OF THE CENTRAL AMERICANREPUBLICS SINCE 850

GuatemalaEl SalvadorHondurasNicaraguaCosta RicaPanama

112130SI76


For primary sources there are the usual Spanish taxation documents, 18th- anti 19th-century estitnates, partial counts anti a not icr;’ impressive collection of late 19th— andearl;’ 20th-century censuse.c: Costa Rica 1864. 1892, 1927.’ El Salvador 1901, 1930:Guatemala 1880, 1893. 1921. 1940: Honduras 1881, 1887. 1901. 1905. 1910, 19)6.1926. 1930, 1935, 1940, 1945.’ Nicaragua 1906. 1920, 1940: Panama 1911. 1920. 1930,1940. In 1950 censuses n-crc held in all the republics. hut the hope dial this would leadto a single decennial c’ettvusJbr die n-hole area ha.;- not bee,, fitljilled. .411 of them hai’emanaged to hold two censuses shu-e then, hone ye,’: one in the ear/i’ sixties and anotherin i/ic ear!)’ seventies,

Al. J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socio-Economic History 1520 1720(1973). is good on tile ear/i- data, a,,d 8. Baron Castro. La Población de El Salvador(1942). git’es an excellent synthesis of one c’oiaitrt’ :~ material. Unfo,’tunately. tampa?’—able tnonographs for the others are lacking. For summary t,-eattneuts see Rosenhlat.* Baron Castro and * Sanchez-Albornoz.

___~ 35?French had added a major island apiece

r to their Caribbean empires: the BñtitisjiJamaj~a and the French Haiti (WesternHisnai~jola). The slave populations of

~ these two were built up from almostnothing to Q~Li1 and O5m respectivelyby 1800 (as agthi ~i’~opulaJions of

which means thatthty~ook nearly half the Negroes imported in the course of the century, sayl25m out of 275m. For the slavepopulations were not self-sustaining:they grew only because the input wasmore than sufficient to make up for theloss inflicted by cruel overwork, chronicundernourishment and an unfavourablesex ratio. This is, indeed, quite obviousfrom the fact that it took an input ofnearly 3m during the 18th century toobtain a growth in numbers of t5m.Nowhere else did the African sufferquite so badly as this.

The slave trade was suppressed andslavery itself abolished in the courseof the 19th century. Another 075mAfricans were landed in the Caribbeanbefore this state of affairs was consummated: they were mostly brought in bySpanish shippers, who took advantageof the lack of competition to expandtheir trade in its last few decades. Oncefreed, the African’s natural talent forreproduction soon asserted itself and onall the islands population totals started

to mount. In the case of Cuba theincrease was boosted by substantial immigration of Spaniards (O75m) andblack labourers from the poorer islands(O25m, mostly Haitians) which helpedto keep this, the largest of the Antilles,well ahead of the rest in populationterms, It also kept the upper half ofCuba’s population genuinely white. Bycontrast Haiti. which at the end of the18th century was the site of theCaribbean’s only successful slave revolt,has been 100°,, black since then and sopoor as to be unable to sustain the ratesof increase achieved elsewhere.

In this century there has been substantial emigration from the Caribbeanto the USA (where there are presently075m people of Cuban origin and 175Puerto Ricans) and Britain (075m,mostly Jamaicans) which has gone someway towards mitigating the problemsof increasing numbers and limitedresources. The figures for the variousislands and island groups are given inthe table on page 301. together withestimates for the earlier periods and arough indication of the present ethniccomposition. The non-African percentage is mostly white except in the case ofTrinidad and Tobago where it is almostentirely Asian, the result of the importof indentured labourers from India inthe period 1838 1917.


The size of the pre-Conquest population of the West Indies is hotly debated between A.Rosenblat (in La Poblaciôn de America en 1492 (1967)). whose estimates are usedhere, and S. F. Cook and W. Borah (in Essays in Population History 1(1971)), whosuggest 7m or Sm for Hispaniola alone! If anything, Rosenblat s O3m for the area isprohahlr a bit on the high side.

For the colonial centuries there is an embarras de richesse because it teas bothnecessary and easy to caunt the small embattled European populations and the slavesthey used.

For Cuba see J. Perez ik Ia Vita in Cahiers des Amériques Latines. série Science deI’homme. 8, 1973, and the historical section of the 1899 census (reprinted in the 1907and 1919 censuses). There doesn’t seem to be much of use to the historical demographer

35

30~

The CaribbeanIslands

t.BERMUDAS

BRITISH LEEwARDS— 4

Havana ‘a -.

“ HISPANIOLA S ~

~ ~ThoMtNIcAN’

25 cuBA~~HAmREPuBLic~f~,/4q/ ~

Poit S~ PUERTO GUADE ~Kingston. a~ DomingoPrinoe BRiTISH I - St L~a. BARBA

WINDWARDS 1 51 ¼iw11; a DOSI Grenalao

- - fl.TRINIDAD

I!

20DUTCIIANTILLES{ Ambo Curacao

~Bon,ire

VENEZUELA

~~o—cflO~U, ~ 105S S SS~ 000000500

— — — — .O~

1975~1

298 The A,nericas AreaS

on either half of Hispaniola or for Puerto Rico since tile US War Department Reportof 1900 (Vol. I, Part 13). For Jamaica and tile British Lesser Antilles see R. V. Wells! ~ ‘N? ~ ‘Se ‘-e ~e -e~e ‘N? “? ~e

5, enoono oboooooo ‘o ~oThe Population of the British Colonies in America before 1776 (1975), B. Edward ~ ,,_ .,~ 00

History of (he West Indies (1793). and G. W. Roberts, The Population of Jamaica —

(1953).The best general surrey is by * Rosenhlat, though his figure of 065,,; ~r 1650 fl 0 0 0 0 0 0 0~ fl VTh ~ ~ 0 e ‘~ 0~ N fl0Cr~ OflflenNN 0 0

dc,’iredJron,’lVileo.v istoohigh.Forthe.cloretrodeseeCurt,n. 2: ó ô’c~i++eh óóóóààLo 6 S

00 00000 en——enoo—en’.t t 00 ~~??enrI 0—NNNN’.o.- 0 cc

— a ~ aaaaoooo a a

rfl 0‘~ ~ oorlN——no 0

2: eñoc~__ óóóààóóó a 6

~ ~ fl000000ccjN’fl Cl 0= 1NO 0 ‘oa ~ oooaaaaa a .a

9

Ien 00000 ~enen_flen — 0o clea~Nym .OO 0 Co ~ a ~‘aaaa aa;;aaoa a +

zcococ’le — 0

C — CÔÔÔàOàóÔ Ô Nz C

LU S~r”0\tfl.n enr~~cccncc en -. Ccc !n ____° 000000 0 —

ààaoo ààaoaa a a .~-

I0 0~~’n0— —rnrlrl—oo — 0 ~—00—0 000000 0 •n -LU oaaaa aaaaaa a a ttx E —

F- .0Li.. en nr’, — — 0 ~o C 00 C 0 (Nci, = 00 0 6 aZo ‘S

(N ,~ ~F— C 0000 0 N oc Ca aaaaa a a z~

‘—I .,~ CC —0 04, Cci

o .0& ~C ‘ ci

Z Z ~. C—

~ ; fl z’0g-~-~ ~, ci,4’ 0 C~ <_~tc.— ‘~ -~

~ ~ 3•~ ‘~ < aig0LU cc <~°$~~~) ~o~~zcc..:cctv S F— ~~ ~OflOc. caDccQ~ccccF-Z ..

(2 -J F—

The cultural gradient of this area in preSpanish times was from west to east,western Colombia being on the fringeof the Andean zone that eventuallyproduced the Inca Empire. It is in thiswestern section that the area’s first experiment in agriculture took place (c.5000 Bc) and here that the first farmingvillages appeared (during the course ofthc 2nd millennium Bc). When theEuropeans arrived the level of this peasantry was, by Amerindian standards,relatively sophisticated. By contrast theeast was sparsely populated with simplefood-gatherers. This explains whyColombia had always contained twothirds of the overall population andspecifically Im of the ISm living in thearea in AD 1500.

The Spanish conquest brought itsusual and awful consequences, compounded in this part of Latin Americaby forced labour in the mines. By 1650the native population had fallen by athird. In terms of pure-bloodedAmerindians it has continued to fallever since, until today they representonly a per cent or two of the totalpopulation. However, from the 17thcentury the growth of the Mestizopopulation has compensated for this decline and secured the continuance of astrong non-European element in thepopulation. The total never fell far, for

2-52m km’

F14m km2O-91m km2O’47m km2

besides the Mestizo we have to countthe white (mainly Spanish) settlers andtheir black slaves, each group numbering some 0lm by the later 17th century.

During the 18th century the whitepopulation grew rapidly largely bynatural increase so that by the timeindependence was gained in the early19th century it accounted for about aquarter of the total. The black andMulatto populations, a scattered andmiscellaneous group of runaways andslaves in various degrees of freedom,contributed another eighth. The restwere Mestizos or Amerindians.

Since independence the populationsof the two successor states. Colombiaand Venezuela, have continued todevelop mainly by natural increase. Theonly major exceptions to this generalization are two brief outbursts of migrationfrom Europe (and Colombia) toVenezuela, the first immediately beforethe Second World War and the secondimmediately after. These added nearly05m people mainly Iberians andItalians to the Venezuelan populationand helped the white element maintainits traditional one fifth share of thewhole.

East of the two big states are threelittle ones, the Guyanas. respectivelyBritish. Dutch and French in colonialdays and now known as Guyana,

THE AMERICAS AREA 6Colombia,Venezuela andthe Guyanas

6a Colombia6b Venezuela6c The Onyanas

Colombia

5

4

3

2

III

1

1975JThe Americas Area do

302


The primary sources are the usual ones for Latin America: vague estimates in the lathcentury, taxation documents in the 17th and 18th. then counts and censuses. Censusyears are’ Colombia 1778, 1782.1803.1810,1825.1835.1843,1851, 1864.1870,1905,1912, 1918. 1928, 1938. 195), 1964, 1974; Venezuela 1787. 1838. 1844 7. 1854. 1857,1873, 1881, 1891. 1920, 1926, 1936, 1941, 1950, 196), 1971: Guyana 1841 4. decennially 1851 1931 (except 1901), 1946. 1960, 1970; Surinam 1964.

Sànchez-Albornoz has a summary of work done on the aboriginal population ofColombia. As usual we follow * Rosenblat for pre-Conquest figures, which are close tothose in J. H. Steward, Handbook of South American Indians, VoL 5 (1949). Post-Conquest figures are based on lbornoz, • Rosenblat and * Barbn Castro.See also F. Brito Figueroa, Historia econémica y social de Venezuela (1966). T. L.Smith on Colombia in Journal of Inter-American Studies 8. 2 (1966), and J. L. deLonnoy and G. Perez Estructuras demograficas y sociales de Colombia (1961). ForGuyana see 11 lVath. A History of Indians in Guyana (1970). and for Surinam I-f. E.Lamur, The Demographic Evolution of Surinam 1920—1970 (1973).

Surinam and (this one still undecolonized as yet) French Guiana.Their populations remained trifling untilthe introduction of a plantation economy in the 19th century. This wasdependent on Asian indentured labour —

in the Dutch case brought from bothIndia and Indonesia, in the British casefrom India, with 0’24m imported between 1838 and the end of the system in1917. The result in both Guyana and

Surinam is racial heterogeneity of analmost unique complexity. Guyana’s0’Sm population is 50% Asian Indian,30% black, 5% Amerindian, 2% whiteand 1% Chinese, with the rest mixed.Surinam’s 0’4m is 40% black, 40% AsianIndian, 16% Indonesian, 2% Chinese.1% white and 1% Amerindian. FrenchGuiana contains only 60.000 peoplealtogether.

25

Venezuela

20

The Americas Areas 6b and c

When the Portuguese discovered Brazilat the beginning of the 16th century thewhole vast area contained no more thanIm natives. Settled agriculture and therelatively high densities of populationassociated with it were almost entirelylimited to the lower reaches of theAmazon; in the rest of the country thepeople depended more on gatheringthan growing and the density figureswere correspondingly low. In the yearsimmediately following the arrival of thePortuguese this low density operated inthe natives’ favour: they were so scattered that neither the newcomers northeir microbes could easily get at them.However the pattern of contact. declineand destruction was only postponed. Aswhite colonization progressed, so nativenumbers fell — to 0-7m ii lZ~9,05m in

,1800 and 0’2m today.Brazil is the enduring monument to

Portugal’s century of maritime glory butmost of the effort made by the mothercountry at the time went into the creation of its empire in the East. It has beencalculated that to maintain a force of10,000 men in the East cost the lives of100,000 Portuguese in the course ofthe 16th century, a heavy drain on acountry with a total population of onlyl25m 2m. By contrast the settlementof Brazil was achieved with a net outflow (up toAD 1600)>oI no more than15,000.

For a long time thc number ofPortuguese settled in Brazil remainedvery small. In 1550 the white population

8-5Im km2 ~bS0

‘4%J~

was only 15,000 and it took to the endof the 16th century to double. By 1650 itwas about 70,000. These settlers ran aplantation economy manned first by virtually~enslaved Indians. then, as 111~Funfortunates died off, by specially import~d and entirely enslaved Africans.In 1650 the latter outnumbered theirwhite masters two to one. The totalpopulation remained at the millionmark as the growth of white and blackpopulations did no more than offset thefall in the number of Amerindians.

At the end of the 17th century a goldstrike injected a bit of speed into thissleepy situation. There was substantialinternal movement of population, awave of new immigration from Portugaland a step-up in slave imports. This lastwas no flash in the pan: slave importswere to continue at a very high level tillthe mid 19th century. Indeed it was onlyafter nearly everyone else had withdrawn from the Atlantic slave trade thatthe Brazilian end of it recorded its peakfigures: a third of a million landings inthe 1820s and the same again in the1840s. It is this prolongation of thetrade through the first half of the 19thcentury that puts Brazil at the top of thetable of slave-importing countries. Thefinal sum adds up to 35m Africans forthe period 1550—1850, or 40°c of theentire Atlantic traffic._Brazil became an independent state in181 The extent to which its societyrested on slavery is shown by thepopulation figures for that date. Out of

THE AMERICAS AREA 7Brazil Brazil

I

o o -. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 Q 000000000 0b~ 0100100100100•ee ~ CD N ~ 0 0oo_~ —‘r’,’4’’ — -‘ — —

1975—’306 The Americas Area 7

THE]

When the Pcat the beginnwhole vast a,I m natives.relatively hi~associated wlimited toAmazon; inpeople deptthan growirwere corresçimmediatelyPortuguesethe natives’tered thattheir microtHowever thand destruciwhite colonnumbers Ic!

800 and 0’Brazil is

Portugal’s cmost of thecountry attion of its cicalculated I

10,000 men00,000 Pc

the 16th cccountry witl’25m 2m.of Brazil “.

flow (up to15,000.

For aPortuguesevery small,

306

_!~~~b-~- ~

Ga total of 4m more than 2m were blackslaves, only Im free whites. Amerin.dians were down to O’4m, the remaining0’2m being free blacks and Mulattos.

Since independence two things havehappened: the total population hasgrown very fast and the white element,because of massive im ra hasgrown even faster. From 2 atindependence the whites have o daily


increased to 6Gm 550 and if thñstates the genetic t becauseone who can get away with it callself white it doesn’t do so b)than l00~. Blacks by contrast are

an official figure of 15% (ma5° in reality) with mulatto

mestizos sharing the remainderbetween them.

The census years arc 1775, 1798, 1803, 1822, 1872, 1890, 1900, 1920, 1940 antent/i year since the,,. The early censuses need carejid interpretat ion; this (and,else) is supplied by 1). Aide,, in Hispanic American Historical Review 43. 2Earl3’ c/ala, i’lL/ut/mg apparent/I’ good figures Jbr rIse cokmisis, ore quoted hHugo,, in Dcmografia Brasileira (1973) and hr Rosenhiat, who gives Iiiestimates for 1650, 1570 and 1492; he is again at die Ion’ end of die range of esof the pre-Conquest population, which runs from Itn to 3’Sn,.

Racial proportions are also given by Rosenbiat (there is a good official est’1818), and the trends discussed by T. Lynn Smith in Brazil: People and Instil(1972). .4 great deal of work has been done on slavery in Brazil.’ • Curtin provicbest numerical introduction and represents die modern consensus. Migration sinois covered by both Hugon and Lynn Smith, and net estimates are quoted by *

Albornoz.

I

3

—-

00 ~ ~0 00000000000Q U’ fl0IO0U’0U’0

0,~e~O)~o, N ~ ~ 0Li Oi — — — — •02

l975—~

Americas Area 8b (text overleaJ)

Agricultural experiments began in thecoastal zone of Ecuador and Peru asearly as 5000 ac. They led to thedevelopment of a village-based farmingeconomy in the 2nd millennium BC and,about the beginning of the Christianera, to the creation of the second majorlocus of Amerindian civilization, theAndean culture sequence. of which thefinal expression was the Inca Empire ofthe 15th century AD. In populationlerms this means totals of 40,000 in 5000BC, 075m in 000 ac. 125 in AD Iand 3Thm in AD 1500. Inca rule, whichsprád uut fiuiii thc capital city ofCuzco in the course of the 15th century.eventually covered the whole area barthe sparsely inhabited east of Boliviaand the lerritory of Paraguay: ihc lastof the Incas. Atahualpa. received thehomage of more than 3m natives.

The destruction of the Incas by ahandful of Spanish adventurers was followed by the decimation of their subjects. Brutality, cultural shock and, mostimportant, disease brought theAmerindian population down to~25mby the mid 17th century and to’~E~i,t2m by the late 18th century. However,there was not the total demographiccollapse that occurred in other, lessculturally advanced areas and eventually. around 1800. the native population

began to increase again. In 1900 thenumber of Amerindians rated as pureblooded had risen to 3m: today it isreckoned at 12m.

Not only have the natives of theAndean zone survived as a people, theyhave always kept a numerical superiority over their conquerers the Spaniards.From 50.000 n 1600 the Spanishpopulatio~~~eased_to 150,000 in 1750and 0-Sm in the l&i0~the era ofindepei~liëiE’B~’T90W there wereroughly 2m people of Spanish descent inthe area, today there are more than 9m.The Mestizos, the third component inthe population, have increased in thesame proportion and to much thesame final figure. The only country toshow a different pattern from thisIndian : Mestizo : white ratio of 4 : 3 : 3is Paraguay, where the aboriginalpopulation of 150,000 Indians hasdwindled to a mere 30.000 today andthe split is between Mestizos (75%) andwhites (25%). Paraguay also deservesspecial mention for the spectacularpopulation drop it suffered in the Warof the Triple Alliance against Argentina.Brazil and Uruguay: between 1865 and1870 two thirds of the adult malepopulation either died or disappearedand total numbers dropped from 06mto 0-3m. t y..-a IQ-b ‘\ I~—’~

\ ,....L.

THE AMERICAS AREA 8 Ecuador,Peru, Bolivia andParaguay308m km’

Sa Ecuador O-ZSm km’Sb Peru F29m km2Sc Bolivia 1-lOm km2Sd Paraguay 0’41m km2

Ecuador

Bolivia

Paraguay

1Asuncion

o o -l 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 S S0 0 U2

0~ 0— — — •02

1975_J

310 The Americas Areas Sa. e and d

Since the original injection of conquistadors, movement in and out ofArea 8 has been of relatively little importance, at least when judged byAmerican standards. Peru imported asmall number of black slaves, less than

ø’lm, and in 1850 75 brought in indentured Chinese labourers to about thesame total: neither race makes a significant contribution to present-day demography.

THE AMERICAS AREA 9Argentina, Chileand Uruguay3-71 km’


The Incas were given to counting people and things by making knots in bits of stringbut as no one knows exactly what their system was, the Jew records that survive are ofno present use. The early colonial period has left the usual collection of guesses.estimates, tax records and ecclesiastical soul counts: head counts start in the 18thcentury. The census record is: Peru, 1777. 1785. 1791, 1795/6, 1813, 1836. 1850, 1862.1876, 1940, 1961. 1972; Ecuador, 1905, 1950. 1962, 1974; Boltvia, 1831, 1854, 1882.1900. 1950, 1972: Paraguay. 1886, 1899, 1935, 1950. 1972.

The population of the Inca Empire is subject to as wide a degree ofestimation as thatof pre-Conquest Mexico, Most older estimates varied bet iveen 4ni and lOm, butrecently afigure of 39m has been put forward by D. N. Cook in Anuario del Institutode Investigaciones Historicas 8 (1965). Again we p,’efi’r • Rosenhlat ‘s much lonerfigure; his estimate for Paraguay, though, seems too high.

Peru is magn(ficently served by its historical demographers. Among the more recentworks are an excellent compendtum by the Centro de Estudios de Poblaciôn yDesarrollo. Informe demografico Peru 1970 (1972): G. Voilmer. Bevolkerungspolitikund Bevolkerungsstruktur im Vizekönigreich Peru zu Ende der Kolonialzeit 17411821 (1967). and Cook’s article. G. Kublers work in English, The Indian Caste ofPeru 1796—1940 (1952). is still very useJitt W. Steward, Chinese Bondage in Peru(1970). covers this interesting episode. See also D. M. Rivarola and G. Heisecke,Población, urbanización y recursos humanos en el Paraguay (1970) and A. AverangaMollinedo. Aspectos generales de Ia población boliviana (1956).

9a and b Argentina and ChileIn AD 1500 the Amerindian cultures of populated. Even in 1850 they had lessthe southern fifth of South America than 2’Sm people between them and it iscould not have been set out more understandable that both did their bestmethodically if a professor of anthro- to encourage immigration from Europe.pology had done it. In the north of Only Argentina had any substantialChile and the north-west of Argentina success. While Chile has never recordedwere peasants living on the outskirts of more than 5°,, of its population asthe Inca Empire; down in the far south foreign-born at any census, Argentina’ssome of the most primitive people ever 1914 census produced a figure of 30°,,recorded eked out a precarious existence and most censuses have reported morein the wastes of Patagonia and Tierra than 10°,,. All in all, since 1850,del Fuego. Between these extremes lived Argentina has received at least 2’Sm netmen at various intermediate stages of immigrants; Chile barely 0’2m.hunting and gathering, cultivation and The resulting differences betweenagriculture. The total population Chile and Argentina are substantial.amounted to something under Im, a The population of Argentina has mulnumber that translates into a density tiplied 40-fold since independence, thatfigure of the low order of magnitude of Chile only 10-fold. Moreover thecharacteristic of pre-Columban white population of Argentina has risenAmerica. disproportionately: from O’lSm in 1825

The Spanish occupation of this area to 15m in 1950. (The bulk of Argentina’swas never complei~ and the number of immigrants arrived between 1880 andSpaniards in it grew~nly slowly — from 1950, the peak years being the l9lOs.70,000 in 1650 to’3~pi’at independenctj Nca,rlyJialf.aLthem came from Ital , a(which came in 1810 in Argentina and in \jbirdSppLSpaia) The white population1818 in Chile). The number of Indians \of Chile during the same period hasdeclined over the same pêriod..~W~m \increased only in proportion: from 0’3m0’8m in 1650 to 0’35m in 1825’ and, ~o 3m. Consequently Argentina is now athough by—thaçda~~’there1~re also ‘nation of predominantly European0~i~es~zos-’1o be reckoned with, /origins, with barely 10°,, of its populaboth Argentina and Chile entered thetion claiming an Indian or a mixedera of independence markedly under- ancestry, while Chile is a nation divided

9a Argentina9h Chile9c Uruguay

2-78m km’O-76m km20-ISm km2

313


The census record is; Argentina. 1778,1813,1857,1869.1895.1914.1947, 1960, 1970.Chile, 1777, 1813. 1832, 1844. 1854, 1865. 1875, 1885. 1895. 1907. then decennial/i’from 1920 except 1952 for 1950. Argentina is i.e/I documented. “lost recent/i’ in J.Con,adrhn Rui:. Evolución demografia Argentina durante ci periodo hispana (15351820) (1969); E. J. A. Maeder. Evolueión demografla Argentina 1810—1869 (/969);F. de Aparic’io (cci), L,~_~gentina: sumtde zeografia, Vol. 7 (IPOL). The demographic hisiorr of Chile between 1700 and 1830 tc covered in an article hr M. ~armagnaniin Journal of Social History 1, 2 (1967). i/ic period since then by 0. Cahello inPopulation Studies 9, 3 (1956).

As usual. * Rosenbla? is a good starling point Jbr ear/i’ population data, and* Sanchez—A Iborno: Jbr recent migration /igllrcs.

The demographic history of Uruguayis that of Argentina in microcosm. Thefew hundred Amerindians of the areawere succeeded by a few thousandIberians during the 16th and 17th centuries: Montevideo made its appearancein the 1720s and numbers slowly inchedup to reach 40,000 by 1800. Who ownedthe territory was a matter of dispute; theSpaniards looked to Buenos Aires, thePortuguese to Rio. Eventually the quarrel was resolved by Argentina and Brazilagreeing to the creation of the independent state of Uruguay (1830). Its

population of 75,000 increased to130,000 by 1850, 0’9m by 1900 and225m by 1950. Today it stands at2’75m, nearly all of whom are ofEuropean descent.

Immigration has played an importantpart in Uruguay’s growth, the net inputamounting to 0’5m people in the last150 years. Most immigrants came fromsouthern Europe in the later 19th century: a third of them got no further thanMontevideo. which now contains halfthe country’s population.

almost equally between whites and thoseof Indian or mixed descent. In bothcountries mixed is a much more important category than Indian: there are only

about 03m reasonably pure-bloodedIndians left today, most of them inChile.

35

30

Argentina

9c Uruguay

5

4

3

2

1-

00 00 S °S ~0~0000 050 ~000QIo0~~ o~ 0o o — — — — j oJ

1975

314 The Americas Area 9a


Primary.

The eensi,Chile. 17from 192Co,nadrâ1820) (1F. deApphie his!,,, ioLtrrPopulat

As io* Sa,,eh

90Theis thafew ~wereIberi~ttirie~in th’up t(the I

SparPortrd V

agredeni

hA

Uruguay 5 populist ion nisiory is adequately covered by E. Al. Naran~’io and F. (‘apur,C’alame,. Hisioria y anãlisis estadistico dc In poblacion dcl Uruguay (1939), and bJ. A. Odd~, La formacion del Uruguay moderno (1966). The odd Ji’ature of lit

prImary data is the irregularity of the census: the sequenc~i runs 1852, 1854. 19011963, 1975.

almost eqtof Indiancountries(ant categ

Chile

Uruguay

5

E::::z:::iz~z0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 fl 000000000 Og) 0 ~ 0 Ii~ 0 II~ 0 Is~00 — — .-i — 01

ig~s

4nwrfrnv Ai’.n, Qh tins,’

Part Five

Oceania

I AUSTRALIA2 MELANESIA3 POLYNESIA4 NEW ZEALAND

4

3 Polynesia

A.

Fig. 5. I Oceaflia .x,,b~/irisio,,

e

OCEANIA: OVERVIEW9m km2

The geography of the island chain that stretches from South-East Asia toFiji looks smooth enough on the map: first come the large Indonesianislands, then the smaller, then the relatively huge land of New Guinea andfinally a scattering of islands tailing off to nothing in the south Pacific. Butit has been known for a long time that from the biological point of viewthere is an important discontinuity in the sequence. This falls somewherebetween the larger Indonesian islands and New Guinea. The islands to thewest support an up-to-date fauna of placental mammals, those to the eastmake up a sort of ‘lost world’ inhabited by primitive marsupials of the sortthat are vanishingly rare everywhere else. This is the biological basis for thedistinction between Asia and Oceania.

Wallace, the first person to point out this discontinuity, took the deepchannel running east of Borneo and Java as the dividing line and this isreasonable enough: during the Ice Ages, when the sea level was lower thannow, this channel marked the eastern border of the Asian mainland. Butthere is more to Wallace’s line than Wallace realized. The land mass of

35

Oceania

---:730 . //

I0• /

25

20

I-15

Fig. 5.3 Soot/i-East Asia and Oceania: present toast/me (/eft) and outline ofmain land masses in 50,000 B c (after * Howe//s pp. 136—7)

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 S 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0~~Co —

Fig. 5.2 Oceania, continental iota! 321

Australia New Guinea originated in a different part of the globe from Asiaand drifted into its present relationship with the Indonesian archipelagoonly some 50 million years ago. Hence its cargo of primitive beasts.

Exactly where the geological dividing line between the continents shouldbe drawn is still unclear. The convention of the moment allots everythingup to New Guinea to Asia. This is a minimum definition of Oceania butstill means that the Indonesian Republic must be treated as a part-Asian,part-Oceanic state; adjustments involved in adding the area and populationof western New Guinea (West Irian) to Indonesia-in-Asia are given onpage 332.

Early on in the last Ice Age, around 70,000 BC. the Indonesian islandswere inhabited by a race of man ancestral to the present-day Melanesians.Oceania was uninhabited. As the cold reached its maximum intensity andmore and more water was locked up in the ice caps, the sea-level fell by 100metres, with the result that new islands appeared and existing islandslinked up at many points through the archipelago. The voyage from Asiato Oceania became easier than it has ever been since. Moving eastward theMelanesians reached first New Guinea, then Australia, the latter apparently by 50,000 ec. The numbers involved must have been tiny and thetechnology palaeolithic at its most primitive, but the area available forcolonization was immense and the figure for the population of theAustralia New Guinea land mass must soon have been over 100,000. By5000 nc, when the Ice Age was over and the rising sea-level had created thepresent geographical outline, this figure would have risen to the quarter ofa million mark.

By this time the neolithic techniques that had come into use in Indonesiawere percolating into New Guinea. As a result population densities therebegan to rise and New Guinea society to develop the features that characterize Melanesia today. Indeed, with the discovery and colonization of theislands to the east of New Guinea an event that is currently dated to the2nd millennium nc the Melanesian world expanded to its full geographical extent. As Australia remained untouched by the new influences andits population was now levelling off in the 200—250,000 area theMelanesians had moved into the majority position in Oceanic demography.This dominance was to increase over the next twenty centuries. By AD 1000the Melanesians numbered well over a million and constituted 80”,, of thepopulation of Oceania.

With Australia an unchanging palaeolithic backwater, any challenge toMelanesia’s predominance had to come from a new population group. Thenucleus of one had been developing over the period since 1000 BC in theTonga islands and, since 300 BC. when the Tongans discovered andcolonized Samoa, in the Samoan Islands as well. By the beginning of theChristian era these outliers of the Melanesian world were sufficiently differ-

entiated from it in language and culture to deserve the separate title ofPolynesians. Their seamanship had developed too: Polynesians wereincreasingly capable of surviving the accidental voyages of discovery thatresulted from errors In their local navigations; they were even beginning tobe capable of organizing deliberate explorations. This potential was fullyrealized with the next period. Between the 4th and 10th centuries AD aseries of epic colonizations took the Polynesians to Tahiti, Hawaii, theCook Islands and New Zealand. In demographic terms the rewards werenot enormous: Hawaii and New Zealand had at most a quarter of a millioninhabitants each when first probed by Europeans in the 18th century; therest of Polynesia no more than 100,000. By Oceania’s modest standards,however, the Polynesian contribution was enough to raise the total for thearea to 25m and reduce Melanesia’s share of it to two thirds.

*

The European discovery of Oceania was a curiously long-drawn-outbusiness. It took from the early 16th century, when Magellan became thefirst European to sail the Pacific, to the late 18th century. when Cook’s

Fig. 5.4 Native coloni:aiian of the Pacific Is/an c/s

322 323

voyages of exploration showed that there was no major undiscovered landmass in the area, for geographers to learn to draw its outline properly.Contacts between Europeans and Oceanians were equally slow to develop.Essentially as isolated as ever, the natives continued to increase at the samerates as they had in pre-Magellanic times.

All this changed after 1788, the most important date in Oceania’s history. In January of that year a fleet of eleven British ships arrived oft thecoast of Australia and disembarked approximately a thousand people atPort Jackson, near present-day Sydney. The European invasion of Oceaniahad begun.

The new era was no fun at all for the natives. All early observers agreethat the aboriginal peoples living in contact with the early settlers suffereda rapid decline in numbers. In some places whole tribes simply meltedaway. This has led to the lavish use of words like ‘extinction’ and‘depopulation’ in most works on this phase of Oceania’s history. In thelarger view these accounts are misleading. Half of Oceania’s populationlived in New Guinea, which was outside the area of European interest andquite unaffected by it. Moreover, although even cursory contact with thewhite man could lead to outbreaks of diseases which were new to thePacific and against which the natives had no resistance, any drop inpopulation would in the normal course of events have been made up in adecade or two. It needed colonization as well as contact to drive nativenumbers down really drastically.

Just how big was the fall in Oceania’s native population? Taking thethree worst cases together Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii the dropwas from 700,000 in 1800 to 150,000 in 1900, or 80°c. On the other hand,because of the continuing growth in untouched and populous New Guinea,the loss in Oceania as a whole was much less dramatic of the order of I2”~.Perhaps the best way to get a measure of the average South Sea Islander’sexperience is to take Australia, Polynesia and New Zealand together butexclude Melanesia. The result is a fall of 5000 in the aboriginal total, whichis savage but stops some way short of annihilation (Fig. 5.5).

As is obvious from this graph the course of Oceanic demography since1850 has been all white and straight up. From 0’6m in 1850 Australia’spopulation has rocketed to near 14m today. Over the same period NewZealand’s population has grown from O’Im to 3m. And Hawaii, whichbecame America’s fiftieth state in 1959, has more than 03m whiteAmericans in its 086m population. Altogether, Europeans and Americansof European ancestry form 7000 of Oceania’s present-day population of23m. It has been a remarkable performance considering that 200 years agothe percentage was nil.

Just as Australia now dominates Oceania’s demography so the history ofimmigration to Oceania is predominantly British. The British Isles have

supplied three quarters of the 4’5m people who have crossed the seas tosettle in Australia and 90°c, of the Im who have settled in New Zealand.The other migrants are numerically puny by comparison though of considerable local importance and often fascinating sociologically. Such arethe French who settled in New Caledonia, the Indians who came as indentured labourers to Fiji (for both of which see Area 2 Melanesia) and theextraordinary mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos and Americans whohave converged on Hawaii.

The demographic future of Oceania is bound to be dominated byAustralia’s growth rate. This is not spectacularly high and is likely to fall

400 ADI 400 1000 1300 1500 1600 1700 I800~l900 ~Q

Fig. 5.5 Population of Oceania minus liielanesia. (Solid line: aboriginal populationsof Australia, Poli’nesia and Nan’ Zealand. Dotted line: total popidation.) The nativepopulations .411 a little further than the roundedfigures given above indicate: there “asa drop from 420,000 to 360,000 between 1850 and 1900 (a fall of 15°c) and the nadir“as reached on/i’ in the first decade of this cent un at afigure about 10.000 loiter thanthis

324 325

voyages omass inContactsEssentiallrates as

All thitory. Incoast ofPort Jachad beg

The iithat thea rapidaway.‘depop’largerlived itquitewhitePacificpopuldecadnumb

Justhreewas Ibecaithe IiPerhexpeëxcl’is so

A185’P01ZeebecAnof23th.

itT 326

rhe most logical and the intellectuallytafest starting point for the populationhistory of Australia is sometime after10,000 ac, when the post-Glacial rise inthe level of the world’s oceans had completed the isolation of the aboriginalAustralians from the world beyond theTorres Strait. Before that break severalwaves of migrants had moulded theaboriginal population into substantiallyits present form. After it the aboriginalwas left alone for some 10,000 years toseek and to find balance with the forcesof nature.

That balance, in demographic terms,seems to have arrived many millenniabefore Christ. The maximum populationthat Australia could support as long asman remained a roving, hunting, gathering creature was about 300,000; and wewill not be far wrong if we imagine thatbetween 10,000 ac and the arrival ofWestern man in the late 18th century AD

the population was fluctuating aroundthe quarter of a million mark.

For the aboriginal the European impact was harsh and bitter. His worldcollapsed in the decades following thelanding of the first settlers (mostly convicts) in 1788. and from this simple truthromantic anthropologists have generated the concept of ‘cultural shock’ asa cause of increased mortality. The morehard-headed demographers tend toprefer the idea that the natives lackedresistance to Western disease. Whateverthe explanation and there was somestraightforward slaughter thrown in as

Australia7’69m km2

well the aboriginal population beganto fall and it continued to fall until theearly 20th century. By then some tribeswere extinct, notably the Tasmanians(originally some 4.000 strong: the lastdied in 1876) and the overall numberwas down to 60,000. Recovery at leastin demographic terms has seen a riseto some 80,000 today.

While the prehistoric Australiansstruggled and largely failed to come toterms with modern Western society, thesomewhat sorry and entirely involuntary representatives of that society whohad been dumped on Australias shoresin 1788 and the following half centuryor so until transportation ceased in the1840s wrote a success story, thoughwith the traditional hazardous beginning. The original shipment of 736 convicts (188 of them women) and theirguards had become a population of10,000 by the late 1800s and 100,000 bythe early 1830s. The pre-Magellanicmaximum of 250,000 was reached in the1840s, the 05m mark by the early 1850sand the million by 1860.

The year 1860 is a convenient point atwhich to pause and look back. Threequarters of the growth from virtuallynothing to I m in seventy years had beenachieved by immigration. This immigration was overwhelmingly British, andbefore the Gold Rush of the l850s,which doubled the population in a decade. it was substantially though after1820 decreasingly the forced migration of convicts. nearly 150,000 in all.

further in line with the general trend for advanced countries Probably~AItEA 1area as a whole will have a Population of around 36m by the end of ticentury. Interestingly enough the rates of increase of the aborigjnaj peopithave recently risen to very high levels so they are likely to figure mo,signifi~~tJ~ in the total than they do now.

3: 327


The population histories of the aboriginal and tile settler populations of Australia mustbe considered completely separately indeed, until 1967 the legally defined statisticalpopulation of Australia was the non-aboriginal population.

For the aborigines who were never properly counted until the second half of the20th century — the best source is F. Lancaster Jones, The Structure and Growth ofAustralia’s Aboriginal Population (1970). The quarter of a million pre-Europeanpopulation estimate is thot of A. A. Radcl~ffe-Broirn in the Australian Official YearBook 23 (1930). F. L. Jones would ltke to reduce this to perhaps 215.000. The timeneeded for the original group of aborigines to multiply up to 03m is discussed byJoseph Birdsell (Cold Spring Harbour Symposium on Quantitative Biology. xxii(1957), p. 47).

For the history of the settlers see W. D. Borne. Population Trends and Policies(1948), W. D. Borne and C. Spencer. Australia’s Population Structure and Growth(1965). and the Australian Encyclopedia (1958) under Population~ and ‘Immigration.The basic source is the census, decennialfor the whole of Australia since 1881. and witha positive abundance ofearlier state censuses: Sfor New South Wales from 1828, 3forTasmania from 1841, 6 for South Australia from 1844. 4 for Western Australia from1848. 3for Victoria from 1854 and 3for Queensland from 1861 (and another in 1886).Needless to say, state census dates coincided only intermittently.

After 1860 the pattern changed.Australia began to settle down to amore respectable and more urban (ifonly marginally more urbane) way oflife. The contribution of migration topopulation growth dropped to aroundthe 40°. mark, before almost ceasing fora time at the end of the century. Themigrants remained substantially Britishin origin, only one tenth coming fromelsewhere in Europe mostly fromGermany, though there were some fromScandinavia and Italy as well.

The pattern established in the later19th century has in many ways been followed to the present time. Net immigration has tended to come in bursts, at

periods when the balance of push andpull has been favourable to emigrationfrom the old to the new Europeanworlds. Particularly favourable periodswere the ten years before 1914, the tenyears after 1918 and the period from1945 to the late 1960s. These three high-input phases added approximately 03m,04m and 2m net immigrants respectively to the Australian population. Upto the late 1940s these additions werestill predominantly British in origin.Since then the British component hasfallen to a third, the remaining twothirds being largely of central andsouthern European origin.

Australia

25

20

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0o o — 8 0

010 0 10 0

00 — — — — .D~1975—~

Oceania Area I

35

Melanesia consists of the large island ofNew Guinea (083m km2) and a series ofsmall islands that trail off from NewGuinea’s eastern end getting smaller andfurther apart as they go. The maingroups are, from west to east, theBismarcks, the Solomons, the NewHebrides. New Caledonia and the FijiIslands. Island Melanesia’ (as opposedto New Guinea) has a total land area of0150m km2

Melanesia was first occupied bypalaeolithic man around 50,000 BC during the movement that was responsiblefor the population of Australia. Withina few thousand years these simple hunters and gatherers had spread as far asthe Bismarcks and their number hadreached the 20.000 mark. This represented an equilibrium point for thecultural level and no further growthtook place until the 6th millennium BC.

In the interim the rising sea level of theearly post-Glacial period had created thegeographica division betweenthe Melanesian and Australian provinces of Oceaniaby flooding the land bridge betweenthe two and forming the Torres Strait.

The cultural division soon becameequally complete, for Melanesia nowbegan to receive neolithic influencesfrom Indonesia which either neverreached Australia or never took rootthere. Melanesia moved forward intothe New Stone Age while Australiastayed in the Old. The new techniqueswere horticultural rather than fully

nevertheless they were sufficient to support a population that by 1500 Bc hadgrown to a quarter of a million and hadspread to the easternmost islands of thearchipelago. By 500 ac the total willhave risen to half a million.

The growth rate now slowed down. InAD 1500, on the eve of the Europeandiscovery of the Pacific, there wereat the most a million and a half.Melanesians 70°c of them in NewGuinea, 30’~ in the islands. As it turnedout ~he Europeans had no soonerdiscovered Melanesia than they turnedtheir back on it and their few perfunctory explorations were of far less importance to the natives than the introduction of the sweet potato from Indonesia.Not till the early 19th century. when thepopulation had reached I75m, did theEuropeans begin to make much impactand it was only at the end of the centurythat the area was divided up between thecolonial powers.

The most immediate effect of colonialism was on the islanders. Between1879 and 1916 the British importedsome 60.000 Indians to run the plantations they established on Fiji and as thenative population fell from 110,000 to85,000 over the same period, Fiji today is a half-Indian, half-Melanesiansociety. The French created a rathersimilar situation in New Caledonia,where they established a penal colony.A third of the present-day NewCaledonians are descended either fromthe convicts who were deposited there

OCEANIA AREA 2 MelanesiaO-98m km2 Melanesia

30

25

9?

- IHQ °°°~° 000iO~b~ tOO ~‘O

0 0 — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

OJ,cO~ ~ 0

— ‘-1 — —JOJ

I 1 1975

330 Oceania Area 2

(80,000 between 1853 and 1897) or the whole area is in the throes of the demo-voluntary European immigrants who graphic revolution. The islands cur-accompanied them. rently divide as follows:

Of course none of these figures is ofmuch significance in relation to thepopulation of New Guinea, wherethings went on much as before until wellinto this century. By 1950 New Guineacontained 22m people as against the0’75m in the islands. Today the figuresare 33m and l5m respectively and the

West IrianThe western half of New Guinea (West Irian) is politically part of Indonesia. Itcontains 30°,, of the island’s population or Im people as of 1975. The rest ofMelanesia is under U N mandate or remnant colonial administrations of one sort oranother, though eastern New Guinea and the northern Solomons will be independent by the time this book appears.

MicronesiaNorth of Melanesia lie the scattered atolls and other small islands that formMicronesia. The people are similar to the Melanesians and seem to have been in thearea since the 1st millennium ac. There were less than 100,000 of them in AD 1500;today there are about 225,000. Politically the area is under American control.

Primary Sources

New Guinea is stony groundfor the historical demographer. There were surreys of thenative population of the western half in 1959—62 and in 1968 but so fOr there has beenno head count there. In the eastern half’ there has a sample census in 1966. TheBisniarcks and the northern So/onions (spec~~~cally Bougainville) are administrativelylinked to eastern New Guinea and share the same sources or lack of them. Elsewherethe picture is a bit brighter. In the southern So/onions there was a sample census in1959 followed by a proper head count in 1970. In the New Hebrides the authoritiespublished accurate estimates from 1910 on and took a census in 1967. New Caledoniahas a series of offical estimates starting in 1863 and has held a quinquennial census since 1910. Fiji took its first census in 1879 and has taken them decennially since1881.

Estimates are available for most parts of Melanesia from the mid 19th century. Theyvary from careful administrative assessments to wild guesses. but because there were nodata oil which to base calculations it doesn t necessarily follow that the official figuresare an)’ better than the guesses. And all the figures are contanunated by the belief thatthe population of the area was collapsing.

BismarcksSolomonsNew HebridesNew CaledoniaFijiMicronesia

025m025m009m01 3m055mO’23m

Total l50m

Bibliography

For a general survey of the current situation see Melanesia by H. C. Brookfield andDoreen Hart (1971).’ for an outline of the historical trends see Ho,,’ells. There is agood account of the Solomons in the 1970 census report and excellent coverage of FUiin R. G. Ward, Land Use and Population in Fiji (1965). Ne’.’ Caledonia is co”eredbyan article in Pacific Viewpoint 5, 1(1964).

35

The Polynesians are all descended froma few score Melanesians who colonizedthe islands of the Tonga group around1000 BC. Over the next 700 years thesepioneers multiplied up to about 10.000and developed the linguistic and culturalfeatures that distinguish them from theirparent group. In 300 ac both range andpopulation were extended by thediscovery and colonization of Samoa:the Samoans in their turn discoveredand colonized Tahiti and the Marquesasaround AD 300.

These voyages were soon outclassedby the epic navigations of Polynesia’sgolden age. Between AD 400 and 900 theislanders reached north as far as Hawaiiand south-west to the Cook Islands andNew Zealand. The history of the NewZealand colony is given separate treatment elsewhere (Oceania Area 4) but thefigures for Hawaii are in themselvessufficient to revolutionize Polynesiandemography. By the 15th century theHawaiian islands were supporting halfthe area’s 200,000 population, by theend of the 18th century the majority ofPolynesians lived there: 200,000 in theHawaiian archipelago (most of them onOahu Island) as against 100.000 in therest of Polynesia (most of them onTonga, Samoa and Tahiti). Andwhereas the South Pacific islandsseemed to have reached a natural limit,Hawaii still afforded room for growth.

The arrival of the Europeans in thelast quarter of the 18th century put anend to the Polynesian idyll. This may

have been over-sentimentalized in thepopular imagination the noble savageswere as often savage as noble but atleast Polynesian society had been fruitful and multiplied. Now Europeandiseases cut a swathe through theislands. The fall in the aboriginalpopulation of Hawaii was particularlyrapid from 200,000 in 1775 to 70,000in 1850 and 35.000 in 1900. Overall, between the end of the 18th century andthe end of the 19th the number ofPolynesians was reduced from 300,000to under 150,000. Because of an inflowof people from outside Polynesia thearea did not sulfer a drop in populationon anything like this scale. Hawaii attracted immigrants from China, Japan,the Philippines, Portugal and the UnitedStates (which last annexed the Hawaiianarchipelago in 1898), so its populationin 1900 was 150,000, only 25°c offfrom the late-l8th-century peak, andPolynesia in toto was no more than 20°cdown.

In this century Polynesia has boomed.From 025m in 1900 its population grewto 075m by 1950 and has now reachedl25m. The major part of this increasehas occurred on Hawaii, which currently supports 860,000 people, but eventhe South Pacific islanders, who are stillalmost purely Polynesian. have donewell (see the table). This goes some wayto compensating for the fact thatHawaiians of Polynesian blood nowform less than l0°~ of the population oftheir homeland.

o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 00S ~ St° ~ to

— ,- — — oJ1975

OCEANIA AREA S PolynesiaO-025m km2

Polynesia

30

25

20

15

10

5

4

3

2

NEW ZEAlAND

1.25k

~ — — — .2 — — — — .3 .2 .3A’ -

rt—i--11 -

55• o~00

— 0 0 0 0o o 0 0 0.1 c≥ • cc ~

2?

334Oceania Area 3

1900 1975

Tonga

Samoa

French PolynesiaCook Islands

Tokelau, Niue, and the Ellice Islands

Total for Polynesia exclusive of Hawaii(rounded figures)

Hawaii 150 300 500 860

Australia has only two stages in its

population history before and after1788. New Zealand at least managesthree, indeed four if we count theabsence of population as a stage: theislands of New Zealand were uninhabited well into the Christian era.Prehistory begins around AD 750 withthe arrival of the first inhabitants,probably from the Marquesas in easternPolynesia. On the basis of an economywhich essentially involved outmanoeuvring the flightless moa, theseoriginal New Zealanders managed toincrease from a few boatloads in the 8thcentury to a population approaching15,000 in the 14th century.

By the mid 15th century the moahunter was no more; he was outmanoeuvred in his turn by the semi-agricultural Maori, also immigrantsfrom Polynesia. This time a few boatloads in the 14th century increased to apopulation of a quarter of a million bythe 18th century. When compared, interms of density, with the Australianpopulation, a measure is gained of theadvantage of agriculture, even in itsPolynesian form and even when practised in a not very suitable climate whichconfined the Maori mainly to the NorthIsland.

Western man’s first contacts withNew Zealand were tentative. Propersettlement began only after 1840 but bythen even tentative contact had wroughtits inevitable havoc. European diseasesand European guns had between them

reduced the Maori population to some100,000 by the l840s, and it continuedto fall substantially until it reachedabout 50,000 at the end of the Maoriwars in 1872. After that date, thoughthere was a continuing downward drift,it was relatively slow and came to a haltin the 1890s at the 42,000 mark. Therewas then a steady rise to 100,000 in themid-1940s and since then a spectacularrate of growth, of up to almost 4°,, ayear at times, has taken the Maoripopulation of New Zealand to nearly aquarter of a million once more.

The pattern of growth of theoriginally European population of NewZealand in fact largely British with aconsiderable Scots contingent hasbeen almost the reverse of that of theMaori people. In the mid 19th centurygrowth was rapid. The thousand settlersof 1839 had become about 25,000 by1850 and 300,000 by 1875, reachingOSm in the early 1880s and 1mm 1911.

Within the 19th century period ofsettlement, the rapid growth of the firstdecades came to a peak in the GoldRush years of the 1860s, when thepopulation doubled in the first half ofthe decade. After the excitements of thel860s the pattern settled down to one ofcontinued steady migration before slowing down in the l880s, when for the firsttime natural increase became more important than immigration as a contribution to the overall growth of the population of New Zealand. Since 1900 thepattern has been much the same as

337

POPULATION OF THE MAJOR POLYNESIAN ISLAND GROUPS,

1900 1925 1950 1975

20 25 50 90

40 50 100 20030 35 60 125

8 10 15 25

5 8 12 20

100 125 240 460

OCEANIA AREA 4 New ZealandO-27m km’

Primary Sources and Bjwlography

In proportion to the size of their populations, the Pacjfic islands must be among themost intensely studied corners of the demographic world. The sources are a largenumber of 18th- and (mostly) 19th-century estimates of widely varying quality, and anequally large number of 20th-century counts and censuses. For Tonga, Samoa. theCook Islands and French Polynesia there is an extended discussion of sources andtrends in N. McArthur. Island Populations of the Pacific (1968). Also for Tonga seean article by A. C. Walsh in Pacific Viewpoint 11. 1(1970). For Hawaii see R. C.Schmitt, Journal of the Polynesian Society 76: 467 75(1967) and 80: 237—43 (1971).For a bit more about the minor islands than is in the usual handbooks see the (British)Naval Intelligence Division~s Second World War publication Geographical Handbookof the Pacific Islands and the Australian semi-annual Pacific Islands Yearbook andWho’s Who.

The best historical survey of the whole area (and more) is by * Howells; but see alsoR. G. Ward (ed), Man in the Pacific Islands (1972).


The demography of New Zealand is very well documented hut very little writ len-up.There were censuses of the white populal ion in 1851. 1861. 1864. 1867 and 1871, and ofthe whole population white and Maori in 1858, 1874 and 1878. Since 1881 therehas been a regular census held qutnquennially except for 1931 and 1941 (no censustaken) and 1946 (census taken the preceding year). All i/its raw ,naterial Is summarizedin the usual census publications and also in A Survey of New Zealand Population(Town and Country Planning Branch, Ministry of Works, 1960).

Estimates of the pre-European population arc given in K. B. Cuinherland and J. S.Whttelaw, New Zealand (1970), and are discussed also by * Holltngsworth. The prehistory of New Zealand is open to considerable debate; there nia~’ have been a whole seriesof Polynesian contacts and settlements from the 8th century onwards. However thearguments work out, the population graph is going to look much the same.

Australia’s, with substantial migrationin the ten years before and the ten yearsafter the First World War and in the

period since the Second World War,particularly in the late 1940s and in the1950s.

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

4

3

2

1

Oceania Area 4

4

17inhabited area

0••t2

Part Six

GlobalOverview

rI,

— I

U

S.

Fig. 6.1 Man c haNgar

GLOBAL OVERVIEW

When we last looked at the global situation (on page 14) the year was10,000 BC and the total population some 4m. Partly because of betterweather, partly because of the colonization of Oceania and the Americas,the trend was very gently upwards, but the weather could hardly be expected to go on improving indefinitely and there were no other habitablecontinents to be discovered: if population was to increase further some newfactor had to be added to the situation. Numbers did go on growing,indeed around 5000 BC the rate of growth began to accelerate. The newfactor that made this possible was, of course, the development of agriculture. It is fair to say that no aspect of human society was to be moreradically, immediately and permanently altered by the ‘neolithic revolution’ than the quantitative.

Though the details of the pattern of growth during the last few thousandyears BC are disputable the overall picture is not. Up to 5000 BC the areaunder crops was too small to have much effect on the global situation andtotal numbers made only sluggish progress (Fig. 6.3). Then came the upswing. There was (according to us) a gain of near 50°, in the course of the5th millennium BC and of roughly l00°0 in each of the next three millennia. Finally, around 1000 BC coincident with the beginning of the IronAge in Europe and the Near East the rate of growth rose to its peak forthis cycle. The doubling time dropped from 1,000 years to 500, the globaltotal shot up, breaking through the lOOm level in 500 BC. Never before hadthere been so many people multiplying so fast. However, although absolutenumbers continued to mount to I 50m by the 2nd century B C and to near200m by the 2nd century AD the rate of growth now began to slacken off.The gain over the period 500 ac to AD I was 70°, not 100°,: over the next200 years the addition was a mere l2°, and then growth ceased entirely.The cycle that had begun 6,000 years earlier we can call it the primarycycle was complete.

Though man’s estate was altered out of all recognition by the primarycycle it must be emphasized that this was a phenomenon with strict geographical limits. The shape of the population graph was entirely determinedby developments in Europe, North Africa and mainland Asia. Africa southof the Sahara was only entering its ‘primary cycle’ as the global event was

7000

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

800

600

400

200

o o — 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Fig. 6.2 Total population 343

nearing completion. America was moving in parallel with Africa ratherthan Europe or Asia, and Oceania was hardly moving at all. So the primarycycle is really the story in demographic terms of the evolution and culmination and, indeed, final decay of the classical societies of the Mediterranean,the Near East, India and China. Relatively speaking Africa, America andOceania lost ground, their share in the global total falling from 40°,, to lessthan l5°~, with Africa (30°,, in 10,000 nc, 10°, in AD 500) doing particularly badly.

What brought the primary cycle to an end? Is there a clue in the almostidentical timing of the down-turn in both the Roman and ChineseEmpires? Does this mean that we should look at climate as the determiningfactor? Certainly we should look. Specifically we should try to find out ifthe weather got worse in the 3rd century AD, the critical century in botheast and west. It is reasonable to expect the next generation ofclimatological research to provide a definite answer to this question, sotheoretical arguments for and against the hypothesis are a bit pointless,but, for what it’s worth, our guess is that the answer will be negative. Itseems certain that within Europe it was the Mediterranean lands thatsuffered the biggest fall in population and that the northern countriesescaped relatively lightly. This is the opposite of what one would expect tohappen in a ‘little ice age’.

To us the most likely thing is that the primary cycle, far from being cutshort, played out its full history. The people at both ends of the old worldmultiplied up to, indeed somewhat beyond, the optimum for the technology of the time. Contact across Central Asia though tenuous was sufficient to keep their parallel development in phase.

*

The collapse of the Roman and Han empires the ‘slave-owning societies’of Marxist terminology was followed by the half dozen centuries knownas the Dark Ages. During this period the Old World took time off torefashion and revitalize itself: there was little numerical growth in any ofthe major centres of population and in many there were actually less peoplethan there had been during the classical noon. By the 10th century thistransitional phase was clearly coming to an end. In Europe a new societyhad emerged, the feudal society characteristic of the high medieval period,and it was expanding in every sphere political, cultural, technological anddemographic. At the same time China was entering on one of the mostremarkable periods of growth it has ever experienced, the first hundredyears of the Sung Empire. The medieval cycle had begun.

In the medieval cycle, as in the primary cycle, events at opposite ends ofthe Eurasian land mass have an astonishing synchronicity. It is interesting

Fig. 6.3 World population 10,000 nc AD 500 to pursue the analogies the switch from bureaucracy to aristocracy for

344 345

example in the two cultures’ parallel evolution from classical to medievalforms because behind these sociological similarities there are presumablycommon technological factors and it is again presumably their sharingin these factors that kept the two cultures in phase. The whole subject is asimportant as it is ill-understood. Anyhow, once again the two curves rose,overshot and fell back in approximate unison. The Chinese peak did, it istrue, come a hundred years earlier than the European, but an adequateexplanation for this is at hand in the Mongol invasion of the early 13thcentury. Not only did the Mongols kill a great many Chinese about 35mon our estimate they deliberately destroyed as much of the agriculturalinfrastructure as they could. Recovery from this sort of working-over washardly possible within the limits of the cycle.

In Europe the medieval cycle proceeded to its Malthusian limit. It arrived there around the year 1300. A series of famines and minor epidemicsfollowed which kept population figures oscillating just below the bestthroughout the first half of the 14th century: then a deadlier enemy eventhan Genghiz Khan arrived from Central Asia the bubonic plague. Totalnumbers which had risen from 26m at the beginning of the cycle to near 80at its peak fell back to 60m. The extreme boom-and-bust of the medievalcycle as experienced by Europe and China is damped down in the globalfigures. Our graph (Fig. 6.4) puts the starting point in the 6th centurywhen, for the first time in 300 years, there was an increase in total numbers.It was a modest one, lOm on 190m, or 5°~. In the following two centuriesthe gain was of the same order: in the 9th and 10th centuries it reached1000. Then came the real boom: in the 11th century numbers went up by55m or 20°c. In the 12th century the rate dropped back to l2°~ and thecycle topped out at 360m in 1200. This figure was not to be exceeded tillwell on in the 15th century.

With Africa, America and Oceania still working their way throughretarded versions of the primary cycle the main reason for the damping-down effect is not far to find. There is another element in it however: somecountries which had reached the medieval stage of development stillhadn’t caught up with the major centres as yet. Japan is a good example:its numbers were still rising vigorously in the 14th century and its medievalcycle didn’t come to an end until 1700.

*

The Near East led the world into the primary cycle; Europe and Chinashared the honours in the medieval period; the third cycle the cycle ofmodernization had its beginnings in 15th-century Europe, though China,initially at least, was only marginally behind. The technological basis forthis final surge is clear. It starts with the ships and guns that enabled theEuropeans to discover, dominate and, in important instances, colonize the

The Medieval Cycle 360 360

~

3207 350

265/

24o...V220—~

200 210.—•

190

4W

300

200

00

0500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200

0//0

1300 1400

Fig. 6.4 World pa u lion AD 500-1400

346

other continents. It continues through the agricultural and industrialrevolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries and accelerates as the communications revolution of the 20th century brings all the world into one ‘globalvillage’. And this is, quite obviously, only the half of it. On the mostoptimistic estimate it is going to take until well into the next century for therate of growth to decelerate, while the cumulative totals can’t be expectedto level off nor the cycle to reach its end before the beginning of the 22ndcentury. This account of the modernization cycle can therefore only be inthe nature of a progress report: we can begin at the beginning but we haveto stop before the end.

The beginning is shaky statistically, which is a pity because there seemsto have been an initial hiccup consisting of rapid growth in the 15th and16th centuries rates of 21°, and 28°, respectively, both higher than anyincreases ever achieved before followed by a marked slowing to 12°,growth in the 17th century. Of course 12°, is still a high rate by anystandard except that set by the previous two centuries, but the fall-off isinteresting because once again it was simultaneously experienced in eastand west. This time the prima facie case for a climatic change beingresponsible seems much stronger because from the 18th century onwardsgrowth was resumed at a very high rate in both continents. This effectputting a kink in the curve is just the sort of way one would expect aclimatic change to act. However it should be remembered that all cyclescan be interpreted as a burst of activity followed by a pause for breath andthis may be true of the initial phase of the modernization cycle. Certainly inJapan there was a pause of this type not in the 17th century but in the 18thcentury. This is particularly worth remembering because Japan, thoughcatching up fast now, was still behind Europe and China in its socialevolution.

From the year 1700 on there were no more of these hiccups. Growthrates accelerated to unheard-of levels to 45°, in the 18th century and 80°,in the 19th century. All along Europe had been the dynamo with ratesconsistently higher than the other continents: now it broke away into aclass of its own with a 19th-century gain of 115°,. Indeed if the outflow of40m people to the Americas is taken into account the rate for the periodrises to a phenomenal 135°,.

The extra factor that made figures like these possible was a sustained fallin mortality rates or, to put it another way, an increase in the expectationof life. With their birth rates still as high as ever the Europeans were able toincrease their share of the world’s population to nearly a quarter and, inaddition, to make over the Americas and Oceania in their own image. Therest of the world had a high birth rate but not the low death rate.

In the 20th century the situation has swung the other way. Europe iscompleting both its ‘demographic transition’ and its modernization cycle

‘U

S The Modernization Cycle:5 9,

8250 82508

S

7. SS

6 57501

S

4

3 /2 1625

900__”’

350—Q

% 10090

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

100

1400 1500 1600 1700 i800 1900 2000 2100 2200

less than I % throughout

Fi . 6.5 World population AD 1400—2200

348

by lowering its birth rate to match its death rate. The other Old Worldcountries have entered the first phase of the transition and the middle,maximum growth phase of the modernization cycle: they have reducedtheir mortality rates but not their birth rates. The result is that since 1900Europe has grown relatively slowly by 63°c as against a global average ofl40°~ and its position in the world table has fallen correspondinglyfrom 24°c of the whole to I 6°c. Asia has pulled up from just under 60°c tojust on 6000, Africa from 700 to 95°~ (see Fig. 6.5).

These shifts in global distribution pale into irrelevance when viewedagainst the magnitude of the absolute figures achieved during the modernization cycle. In 1575, after a century of rapid growth had added lOOm tothe total, the world’s population reached 500 million. By 1825 it haddoubled to a billion, by 1925 it was nearly 2 billion, by 1975 only afraction under 4 billion. Note how the time to double dropped from 250years to 100 years and then 50 years. If, as seems likely, it remains at 50years for the next phase of the cycle, there will be nearly 8 billion people onthe earth’s surface by 2025. After that the rate must slow down. The hope isthat this deceleration will occur as a result of the raising of living standardsand the spread of education, not as a result of the imposition ofMalthusian checks. It is certainly happening this way in the moredeveloped parts of the world today and the absence of similar signs in thepoorer countries is not to be taken too pessimistically: they can hardly beexpected to show this sort of response at this stage in their evolution. Buteven in the Third World a slow-down should become apparent before toolong and the S-shaped curve of the modernization cycle can be expected totop out towards the end of the 21st century at a figure between 8 and 9billion. Of this number less than I billion will be Europeans while theAmericans and Africans will both number more than a billion. The remaining 5 billion will be Asians.

If population doesn’t slow down spontaneously it will have to bestopped by some sort of catastrophe, either man-made, microbial ornutritative. Nuclear warfare is one obvious method of cutting back population but has the disadvantage that it could easily cause sufficient globalcontamination to extinguish the human race. Plague could be almost asdevastating: it is unlikely that any bacterium could cause a numericallysignificant epidemic nowadays, but it is not hard to imagine a virus infection that could have a 95°c mortality. Myxomatosis, a disease for whichthere is no treatment, caused this sort of drop in the rabbit population inmany areas of the world in the 1950s. Famine is the ultimate sanction, butif it comes to that it will hardly be acting alone: in the apocalypse the fourhorsemen ride together.

Let us end on a happier note. The human race has solved its problems sofar and it is reasonable to suppose that after something of an overshoot it

will learn how to achieve a numerical level which optimises living standards. We can perceive this optimum only in terms of present day technology and present day expectations. What it will turn out to be given thetechnology and expectations of the 22nd century is another matter, possibly higher than one might think. And, for sure, once the equation between numbers and resources has been satisfactorily balanced, furtherscientific advances would make a resumption of population growth possible. It doesn’t seem at all likely though that any matured society wouldchoose quantity over quality. Our guess is that instead of moving furthertowards the theoretical limit which is somewhere around 20 billion thehuman population, on this Earth at least, will never approach closer to itthan the 21st century level of between 8 and 9 billion.

350

Appendices

APPENDIX I: RELIABILITY

The hypotheses of the historical demographer are not, in the current stateof the art, testable and consequently the idea of their being reliable in thestatistician’s sense is out of the question. It is nevertheless true that there isa remarkable degree of agreement as to the numbers of mankind over thelast 1,000 years (see table below) and that this congruence justifies someconfidence. * Durand has suggested the term ‘indifference range’ to definethe area of confidence: by this he means the range within which there is noreason for preferring one figure to another. Outside if figures becomeincreasingly unlikely not because they can be proved to be wrong butbecause there are good arguments against them. Durand’s ‘indifferencerange’ gradually contracts from something over + l0°~ in AD 1000 tosomething under + 2°, for the present day.

Further back in time the agreement is still good, at least as far as theauthorities cited by Durand are concerned. For AD I he quotes five sourceswhose mean figures are 275m, 300m, 256m, ‘at least 300m’ and 300m.Their average (near 300m) is considerably higher than the figure we haveproposed for this date, l7Om, indeed our figure is actually outsideDurand’s indifference range. Jt would be out of place to offer a defence ofour position here: sufficient to say that it is rooted in our study of theRoman world, where we believe that the case against higher figures is nowa very strong one. Anyone interested in checking our thesis can do so on a

The world’s population in the period 1000—1900 according to different authorities(after *Durand p.ól (Table 6)); our estimates added for comparison

Dale of Estimateestimate for 1004) 1250 1500 1750 1900

Carr-Saunders I 936 728 1,608Willcox 1940 694 1,571Bennett 1954 275 369 446 749 1,555Cipolla 1962 750 1,650Durand 1967 79! 1,650Clark 1968 280 384 427 731 1.668McEvedyandiones 1975 270 375 415 720 1,630

353

province by province basis using the bibliographies for the individual countries of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa. There is, however, oneargument in our favour which is apparent only in the global context: ourfigure for AD I, being lOOm below the agreed figure for AD 1000, fits betteron the sort of exponentially rising curve that everyone agrees best describesmankind’s population growth than does the orthodox 300m for both AD Iand AD 1000. One could say that ours is the null hypothesis and that thecase for a higher total is one that has to be argued. (Edward Deevey, whoin the Scienqft American for September 1960 put forward a figure of l33mfor AD I (not quoted by Durand), seems to have derived it from his graphin just this sort of way.)

For the very earliest periods one is talking in terms of orders of magnitudes. Durand quotes 3 estimates for 10.000 BC with lower limits of I, 2and Sm and a common upper limit of lOm. Our proposal of 4m falls at thelower end of this range.

APPENDIX 2 HISTORIOGRAPHY

The first attempts at estimating the world’s population were made in thesecond half of the 17th century. By then the population of Europe could beestimated with some confidence at about lOOm. Asia’s was clearly larger, atleast by a factor of 3, maybe by a factor of 5. Africa was thought to beroughly the equal of Europe, ideas about America were vague. Consideringthe gaps in the data the four-continent totals proposed by G. B. Riccioli(1661) and, more particularly, Gregory King (1696) were surprisingly nearthe mark (see the table below). Unfortunately both spoilt their globalestimates by throwing in an extra lOOm for an as yet undiscovered Continent in the southern hemisphere.

‘Terra Australis Incognita’ turned out to be much smaller than expected

Europe 105 100 100 118Asia 375 500 340 420Africa 58 100 95 61

America 12 200 65 13TOTAL 550 900 600 612

Riccioli~s and King’s estimates of the populations of the four major continents; ourestimates added for comparison.

and very sparsely inhabited, all Oceania containing no more than 2mpeople. This gradually became clear during the 18th century, and to theextent that it was possible to drop the ‘undiscovered’ item from the sum itcould be said that world population estimates improved. However, littleprogress was made in respect of Asia and America and none at all in theease of Africa. With the 19th century the situation was transformed. Agood view of the way in which contemporary estimates developed can beobtained by looking at the figures given in successive editions of Hubncr’sannual Geographisch-statistische Tabellen. These are substantially the sameas ours from the start (1851) in the ease of Europe and Asia, from 1870 inthe case of America and from 1910 in the ease of Africa. The global totalsdo rather better, being within 10°,, of ours throughout.’

Serious thoughts about the likely size of populations in the past beginwith the Enlightenment, in particular with David Hume’s prescient essayOf the Populousness of Ancient Nations (1742). However, no one did anysystematic work on the subject until Karl Julius Beloch, who published hisDie Bei’olkerung der Griechisch—Ronnschen Welt (The Population of theGraeco-Roman World’) in 1886. He followed this up with volumes onrenaissance Europe (1900) and medieval and early modern Italy (publishedposthumously). His position as the founding father of historical demography is beyond dispute. In his day he was alone: now the subject is arespected discipline and historical demographers jostle each other at symposia and confuse our bibliographies.2

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Giovanni Battista RICCIOLI. Born Ferrara, Italy, 1598. A Jesuit, heheld a chair of Philosophy, Theology and Astronomy at Bologna in thePapal States. Wrote extensively in support of the Church’s anti-Copernicanposition, also on metrology. Died 1671.

Gregory KING. Born Liehfield, England, 1648. At various times was agenealogist, a cartographer, a surveyor (he laid out Soho Square inLondon) and a master of official ceremonies (investitures and so on).Remembered today for his statistical essays. Died 1712.

David H U ME. Born Edinburgh, Scotland, 1711. Gained internationaleminence as a historian, economist and philosopher. Today it is hisphilosophical works, particularly the Treatise of Human Nature (1739—40),

I, The Hubner data arc tabulated by • wilicox on pp. 643—4 of vol. ii.2. Most of (he data in this appendix derive rrom the historiographical essays in * wiucox

(Chapter I or Vol. II) and * Russell (pp. 5ff.)

(Our estimale Fr Rieeioli’s Gregory King’sfor 1650) estimate, 1661 estimate, 1696

(Our estimatefor 1700)

354355

that are considered classical: in his own time his main reputation was as ahistorian. This was made by his Essays (1741 2) and his History of England(1754—62). Contemporaries also counted among his achievements thedisproof of the then fashionable theory of physiognomy: there was apparently no sign of intelligence in his fat face and ‘vacant and spiritless eyes’.Died 1776.

Karl Julius BELOCH. Born Nieder-Petschkendorf, Germany, 1854.Became Professor of Ancient History at the University of Rome at the ageof 25: died there fifty years later (1929), the grand old man of Italianclassical studies. In many ways a perfect example of the virtues and defectsof the German scholar of the Imperial era: immensely hard-working, intelligent and perceptive but also arrogant, insensitive and antisemitic.

General BibliographyAll the works mentioned here are given their full titles in the list at the end ofthis section.

Current population figures for all the countries of the world are given inmany reference books, not all of which agree. The official internationalsource is the Nations Demographic Yearbook, the handiest is the* World Bank Atlas, the most up to date is the * Nations Population

and Vital Statistics Report which is revised every three months. Thesepublications are obviously only as old as the United Nations and WorldBank but there were equivalents before the war the Statistical Year-Bookof the *League of Nations and the Annuaire international de statistique.Between them these make it easy to locate the official figure for anycountry in any year since the First World War.

Before that there were no international agencies collecting statistics andone has to turn either to the individual national series (some of thesecontain international data for comparison * Mitchell has a list of the onesthat do) or to various unofficial compendia. The earliest of these is* Botticher’s of 1800. The easiest to use are the Encyclopaedia Britannica(starting with the 7th edn of 1830—42) and the Statesman~s Year-Book(starting 1864). For the very first attempts to stitch together global totalssee Willcox; our Appendix 2 is a precis of his study.

So much for contemporary estimates; now for retrospective collections.Among the most useful are the 1952, 1953 and 1955 editions of the* United Nations Demographic Yearbook, which give census figures back

to 1850, and the 1952—6 and 1960 editions, which give mid-year estimatesback to 1920. For 19th-century Europe there is the quinquennial tablepublished by the Swede *Sundbarg in 1906 and a decennial one in the 1924edition of the German * Handworterbuch. Further back than 1800 the terrain belongs to the historical demographer rather than the compiler ofstatistics. Of the various people who have prepared global series the easiestto get hold of is Clark, but the most recent and comprehensive is* Durand. * Durand also gives all the rival series: our Appendix I is basedon his survey.

Regional studies are best considered in chronological sequences. For theEurope—North Africa Near East region there is * Beloch for the classicalperiod, • Russell for the period extending from late antiquity to medievaltimes, and * Braudel for the 16th century. For Europe during its medieval

357

transformation into an independent unit and in the period since, see* Beloch (2), the relevant chapters of the * Cambridge and * Fontana economic histories and, particularly for recent trends, * Kosiñski. The censusfigures for the continent have recently been collected in * Mitchell’s most useful volume: as to boundary changes the consequences of the last lot areworked out by * Frumkin.

For the North Africa Near Eastern region since it started to go its ownway the main references are * Poliak, * Bonné and the collection of papersedited by * Clark and Fisher. Asian demography is so completely dominated by China and India that it is largely subsumed in the bibliographies for these two areas: for the remainder see Myrdal, das Gupta and,specifically for South-East Asia, * Fisher. For sub-Saharan Africa the onlybroad studies are in * Kuczynski, the report of the Haut Cornitb and

Clarke and they are neither comprehensive nor entirely about Africa:Kuczynski is concerned with British possessions, the Haut Comité withthe French Empire and Clarke with the ‘Third World’.

For Oceania there is only Howells, whose book is first class but notmeant to be more than an introduction.

The New World has attracted more attention than the Old, presumablybecause it is a lot easier to get a grip on the subject at an overview level.* Rosenblat is one of the classics of historical demography a combinationof carefully worked-out estimates by area and race for 1492, 1570, 1650,1825 and 1950, and a very detailed bibliography. *Baron Castro givesanother set of 19th- and 20th-century estimates. *SanchezAlbornoz agood survey of recent work. For the debate that has followed the claims ofthe ‘Berkeley School’ see Sánchez-Albornoz, *Stewart and *Dobyns.

International migrations the only sort we are concerned with havebeen very shakily monitored until recently. The standard work is Willcox:movements since his day are summarized in the background paperprepared for the * United Nations World Population Conference of 1974.For the Atlantic slave trade there is the first-class study by Curtin.

Most of the books and papers mentioned so far have been written bypeople who were not trained as historical demographers but as anthropologists, archivists, economists, statisticians or just plain historians.This is not chance: very few historical demographers are interested inpopulation figures except at a parochial level. What they like best is writingpapers long papers, on small subjects, with no conclusions. Huntingabout for the few that are relevant to a simple study like ours is an exhausting business. Luckily, many of the most useful papers are available in oneor other of three collections: the proceedings of the 1963 *colloqueinternational de Demographic Historique, the selection edited by *

and Eversley in 1965 and a second set edited by *Glass and Revelle in1972. Further references can be culled from two useful compendia of ‘work

done’, * Reinhard (in French) and * Kirsten (in German). There is noEnglish equivalent unless one counts * Hollingsworth, who has splendidfootnotes but behaves frivolously when it comes to making estimates of hisown.

As for the journals themselves, the two main ones are * PopulationStudies (in English) and * Population (in French): an eye on these will catchmost important additions to the literature either directly or via reviews.There are also two bibliographical publications, * Population index and* Anna/es de demographic historique, which, in theory at least, note anything that is published on the subject in any place in any language: briefabstracts give a fair idea of which references are worth following up. Ofcourse they miss some items, particularly when these are contributed byunexpected disciplines. Serendipity is a necessary quality for anyone working in this field.

Annales de dEmographic historique (1964 annually), published by theSociêté de Démographie Historique.

Annuaire international c/c statistique (5 vols.. 1916—21), supplcmentcd byAperçu de Ia demographic des divers pays du mont/c, 1922, 1925, 1927,1929, 1929 36 (1923—39), published by the Office Permanent de l’lnstitut International de Statistique.

Barén Castro, R., ~El desarrollo dc Ia poblaciôn hispanoamericana(1492 1950)’, in Journal of World Histor,’ 5, 2(1959). pp. 325—43.

Beloch, K. Julius, Die Bei’olkerung dci- Griechisch-Riñnischen Welt (1886).Beloch (2) = Beloch, K. Julius, ‘Die BevOlkerung Europas zur Zeit der

Renaissance’ in Zeitschrift für Socialwisccenschaf1 3 (1900).Bótticher [or Boetticher], J. G. I., (English translation). Statistical Tables

appended to A Geographical, Historical and Political Description of theEmpire of Gertnany ... (1800).

Bonné, A.. The Economic Development of the Middle East: An Outli,ie ofPlanned Reconstruction after the War (1945), p. 10.

Braudel, F., The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age ofPhilip H (2 vols., 1972 3), particularly Vol. I, pp. 394—418.

c’anthridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 4, ed. E. E. Rich and C. H.Wilson (1967), Chapter I (by K. F. Helleiner), ‘The Population ofEurope from the Black Death to the Eve of the Industrial Revolution’;Vol. 6, ed. H. J. Habakkuk and M. Postan (1965), Chapter 2 (by D. V.Glass and E. Grebenik), ‘World Population. 1800 1950’.

Clark, Cohn, Population Growth and Land Use (1967).Clarke, John I., Population Geography and the Developing ~‘ountries (1971).Clarke. John I., and W. B. Fisher, Populations of the Middle East and

North Africa (1971).

358 359

Colloque international de dèmographie historique 1963, Actes (1965).Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (1969).Das Gupta, Ajit, Suranjan Sen Gupta, Alak Kumar Datta and Murari

Ghosh, ‘1800—1968: Population of Asia A Reconstruct’, inInternational Union for the Scientific Study of Population, InternationalPopulation Conference, London, 1969 (4 vols., 1970).

Dobyns, H. F., ‘Estimating Aboriginal American Population: AnAppraisal of Techniques with New Hemispheric Estimate’, in CurrentAnthropology 7(1966), pp. 395—416, 425 35.

Durand, John D., Historical Estimates of World Population: An Evaluation(1974), published by the Population Studies Center, University ofPennsylvania. An earlier version ‘The Modern Expansion of WorldPopulation’ is in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,Vol. 111,3(1967).

Encyclopaedia Britannica (editions since the 7th of 1830—42).Ferenczi, I. (ed.) — see Willcox, W. F. (ed.).Fisher, C. A., South-East Asia (2nd edn 1966), pp. 172—9.Fontana Economic History of Europe, ed. Carlo M. Cipolla (6 vols., 1972 ),

chapters on Population in Europe: 500—1500 by J. C. Russell (Vol. I),1500—1700 by Roger Mols (Vol. 2), 1700—1814 by André Armengaud(Vol. 3). Statistical Appendix 1700 1814 by B. R. Mitchell (Vol. 4, Pt 2).

Frumkin, Gregory, Population Changes in Europe since 1939 (1951).Glass, D. V., and D. E. C. Eversley (eds.), Population in History; Essays in

Historical Demography (1965).Glass, D. V., and R. Revelle (eds.), Population and Social Change (1972).Gupta, Ajit Das see Das Gupta.Handworterbuch der Staatsivissenschaf?en (4th edn 1924), Vol. 2.Haut Comité consultatif de Ia population et (IC Ia fämille, Rapport (5 vols.,

1955 8).Hollingsworth, T. H., Historical Demography (1969).Howells, William, The Pacific Islanders (1973).Kirsten, Ernst, E. W. Buchholz and W. Kollman, Raum und Bevolkerung in

der Weltgeschichte (2 vols., 1955—6, and later editions).Kosiñski, Leszek, The Population of Europe (1970).Kuczynski, R. R., Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire (3

vols., 1948—53).League of Nations, Economic Intelligence Service, Statistical Year-Book of

the League of Nations (annual vols., 1927 1944 5).Mitchell, B. R. (ed.), European Historical Statistics 1750—1970 (1975).Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations

(1968), especially Vol. 2, pp. 1393—402.Poliak, A. N., ‘The Demographic Evolution of the Middle East’ in

Palestine and Middle East Economic Magazine 10, 5 (1938), pp. 201 5.

Population (1946 6 issues a year; in French).Population Index (1935 quarterly).Population Studies (1947 3 issues a year).Reinhard, M. R., A. Armengaud and J. Dupâquier, Histoire gEnErale 4e Ia

population ,nondiale (3rd edn, 1968).Rosenblat, A., La Población indigena y el mestizaje in America (2 vols.,

1954).Russell, J. C., ‘Late Ancient and Medieval Populations’ in Transactions of

the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 48, 3 (1958).Sánchez-Albornoz, N., The Population of Latin America: A History (1974).Statesman~s Year-Book (1864 annually).Stewart, T. D., The People of America (1973).Sundbãrg, A. Gustav, Aperçus stat istiques internationaux (1906 and 1908

1908 reprinted 1968).United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs, Statistical

Office, Demographic Yearbook (1948 annually)United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical

Office, Population and Vital Statistics Report (Statistical Papers, SeriesA) (1949 quarterly).

United Nations, World Population Conference 1974, InternationalMigration Trends 1950 1970 (Conference Background Paper by U NSecretariat). Also printed in UN, The Population Debate: Dimensionsand Perspectives (1975).

Willcox, W. F. (ed.), International Migrations (2 vols., 1929—31, reprinted1969); Vol. I also ed. 1. Ferenczi.

World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development),World Bank Atlas (1966 annually).

360

IndexBold face entries indicate standard graphs,italic’ means the rç/i’rc’nc’c’ is it; a snap or diii’grain.

Afars and Issas, French territory of, 234 Australia, 329Africa. continental total, 206 Australopithecines. 13

North African: sub-Saharan ratio. 213 Austria, 89Colonial division. 216 17 Austro-Hungarian Empirc. 91

Afghanistan. 155 Avars. 92Ainu. 180 Axum. kingdom of. 230Albania. 113 Azerbaijan. 158

Albanians in Yugoslavia, 112 Azores. 119Alexander the Great, Empire of, 125 Aztec Empire, 272Algeria, 223

colonists in, 220Algerians in France. 38 9 Bahrein, see Arabia (GulfCoast)Alsacc-Lorrainc. 58 Balkans, IllAlsatians. 58 see also individual countriesAmericas. continental total. 270 Bangladesh. 184

Prc-Columban dcnsitics, 273 density in, 186slave trade. 277 see also Pakistan India Bangladeshimmigration, 278 Bantu in East Africa. 252ethnic structure. 280 in Mozambique. 256

Amerindians, 276, 281) in Southern Africa. 258. 260. 262Angola. 248 Basques. 58Apes, 13 Bedouin in Arabia, 128. 146Arab Empire (the Caliphate), 128 in Egypt, 228Arabia, 145 Belgium (and Luxembourg), 63

interior (Saudi Arabia). 147 Empire in Africa. 21 7Gulf Coast. 147 Belize, 294see also Yemen, Oman Benin, 245

Arabs in East Africa, 252 Berbers, 207in Iran, 154 in the Maghreh, 219 220in Palestine and Jordan. 142 in Libya. 224

Argentina, 315 Bermuda, 301Armenians, 133, 134. 158 Bhutan. 188Asia, continental total, 122 Bismarck Archipelago. 332

density pattern in 3000 BC. 124 Black Death, 24—5in 400 BC, 125 Boers. Boor Republics. 260in AD 1975. 132 Bolivia. 311

division into rcgions, 130—32 Botswana, 261 2Atlantic migration, totals. 278 Brazil, 307

by centuries. 279 Bretons. 58

Bntish Empire, total in 1945, 127 Cushites, 207 II France, kingdom of. 59 Iceland to AD 1000, 116in Africa, 216—17 Cyprus to AD 1000. 115 French in Algeria. 217 sinceAD 1000. 119

Bntish Isles. 49 since AD 1000, 119 in New Caledonia. 330 Inca Empire. 272. 310see also England and Wales, Czechoslovakia, 85 French Empire of Napoleon I, 58 India proper (the subcontinent less Sri LankaScotland, Ireland colonial, in Africa, 217. 244—5 and the Himalayan states). see Pakistan

Brunci. 198 Denmark. 53 French Guiana. 304 India—BangladeshBulgaria. 113 medieval kingdom. 52 French Somaliland, 234 Indian Republic. 184

Bulgars in Turkey, 134 Densities, see Population densities density, 186Burma, 191 Dutch in Southern Africa. 258. 260 Gabon, 248 religious and linguistic divisions. 184, 186Burundi, see Rwanda in Mauritius, 267 Gambia. 245 Indian Subcontinent. 183Bushmen. 207 Gaul. ~ Indians outside India. 186

in East Africa, 250 East Africa, 25t Georgians. Georgian SSR, 158 Indochina. 195in Mozambique, 256 Ecuador, 311 German Empires, medieval and modern, 71 see also Khmer Republic, Laos, Vietnamin South-Central Africa, 254 Egypt. 227 German colonial empire in Africa, 216 Indonesia (less West New Guinea), 201in Southern Africa 258—61 Prehistoric and Early Historic densities, 208 Germans Indonesians in the Guyanas, 304

foreign community, 217 in Czechoslovakia, 84 Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, 169Cameroon. 248 Egyptian Empire, 226 in Russia, 80 Iran, 153Canada, 285 Ellice Isles, 336 in Romania, 96 Iraq, 151Canaries to AD 1000. 118 England and Wales, 43 in Yugoslavia, 122 Ireland, 47

since AD 1000, 119 Anglo-Saxon immigration, 41 Germany. ~ political divisions, 48Cape Colony. 258, 260 Equatoria, 248 inter-war. 71 IsraelitesCape Verde Islands, 244 see also under individual countries current political divisions, ~ Ancient, 141Caribbean Islands, 299 Equatoria, Zaire and Angola, 249 guest-workers. 68—9 M~em, 142

ethnic changes. 297 8 see also under individual countries Ghana, 245 Italian Empire in Africa, 217individual islands, 301 Eritrea, 233 Gorillas, 13 Italians in Belgium, 62

Carthaginian Empire. 209 Estonians, 80 Greece, 113 in Germany. 38Caucasia, 159 Ethiopia. 231 Greeks in Libya. 217Central America, 295 Europe, continental total, IS Hellenistic settlers. 126, 138 in Switzerland, 38

political divisions, 296 density pattern in 1000 BC, 20 expulsions from Turkey, 112. 134 Italy, 107Ceylon, see Sri Lanka in AD 200,21 Greenland. 119 Ivory Coast, 245Chad. see Sahel States in AD 1300.23 Guatemala. 296Chile. 317 in AD 1750,26 Guest-workers, ~ Japan, 181Chimpanzees, 13 in AD 1845,29 Guinea (West Africa less Nigeria), see West Japanese in Taiwan. 174China, t67 in AD 1914,32 Africa Jews in Austria, 90China proper. 171 in AD 1975,36 Guinea-Bissau, 245 in England. 42

ethnic minorities, 173 division into North-Western, Eastern and Guinea-Conakry, 245 in Morocco, 221foreign enclaves, 173 Mediterranean communities, 28 Guinea, Equatorial. 248 in Palestine. 141—2

Chinese outside China. 166 population by political divisions. Guyanas. ~ in Poland, 74in Manchuria and Mongolia. 168, 170 1845.33 j in Romania. 96

Hapsburg Empire (of Charles V), 100inTaiwan, 174 1914.34 Ifor Austrian Hapsburgs see Austro- in Russia, 80in the Americas, 304. 312 1975.35 I

Hungarian Empire in Spain, 100Chinese Turkesian and Tibet. 169 Faroes, 119 Jordan, see Palestine and Jordan

Holy Roman Empire. 71Chuang. 173 Fiji. 332 Homoerectus, 14Colombia. 303 Indians, ~ Honduras. 296 Kenya, 253Comoro Isles, 266—7 Finland. 53

Hong Kong, 173 Khmer Republic. 197

Chinese Empires. 127 Hawaii, 334. 336 murdered by Nazis, 35

Congo. 248 Formosa, see Taiwan Hungary. 93 Korea, 177Cook Isles, 336 France. 57 political divisions. 176Corsicans. 58 foreign community, 56,58 Iberia, lOS Koreans in Manchuria, 170Costa Rica, 296 native minorities. 58 see also Spain. Portugal Kuwait, see Arabia (Gulf Coast)

3M

Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. 185 Russia (USSR). SILaos. 197 to America, 278 political divisions, 184 Russia.in-Asia. 82Lapps, 52 to Oceania, 324 densities. 186 see also Caucasia, Siberia. RussianLalin America. 280 see also individual countries, Palestine and Jordan, 143 TurkestanLaivians. 80 Modernization cycle. 349 Israeli Arab division. 142 Russia-in-Europe. 79Lebanon. see Syria and the Lebanon Mongol Empire. 127 Palestinian Arabs, 142 minOrities. 80Lcsotho. see Swaziland Mongolia (Inner), see Inner Mongolia and Panama. 296 medieval stale (Kievan Russia). SILiberia, 245 Manchuria Canal Zone, 294 Russian Empire (or the Tsars). SILibya. 225 Mongolia (Outer). 165 Paraguay. 311 Russians in Caucasia, 158Lithuania, medieval slate, see Poland Morocco. 223 Persian Empires in Russian Turkestan. 162

Liihuania colonists in. 217 Achaemenid. 125 Russian Turkestan, 163Lithuanians in Russia, 80 Mozambique, 257 Parthian, 126 Rwanda and Burundi. 253Low Countries, see Belgium. Netherlands Peru. 309Luxembourg. 61 Nam,bia and Botswana, 263 Philippines, 201

Namibia. 26! 2 Phoenicians in the Lebanon, 138 Sahel States. 239Maeao. I 73 Naial, 260 in Tunisia. 219 Salvador. 296Maeedonian Empire. 125 Near Easi, 123—4, 128, 30 Poland. 75 Samoa. 336Madagascar. 265 see also individual countries earlier Polish states. 77 Siio Thomé. 248Madeira, 119 Negroes. world totals: Poland—Lithuania. 77 Scandinavia. SIMaghreb. 221 Prehistoric, 207, 241 Poles in Russia. 80 see also individual countries

colonists in, 220 AD 200, 210 in Westen Europe and the Americas, 74 Scotland. 47see also Morocco, Algeria. Tunisia 1975. 241 Polynesia. 335 Senegal, 245

Maghrebis in France. 38 Negroes in ihe Americas, 277, 280 French Polynesia. 336 Seychelles, 267Magyars in Romania, 96 Nepal. 189 Population densities Siberia. 161

in Yugoslavia, 112 Netherlands, 65 Apes and Australopithecines. 13 Sicily, 108Malagasay. see Madagascar New Caledonia. 332 Homo ereetus. 14 Sierra Leone, 245Malawi, 255 French in. 330 Homo sapiens. Palaeolithic, 14. 208 Sikkim, 188

Malawans in South Africa. 254 ‘New Commonwealth’ immigrants in UK, 44 Neolithic. 124. 208 Singapore, 198Malay Archipelago. 199 New Guinea, 330. 332 Population distribution between continents. Slave trade, African, medieval. 213Malaysia. 198 New Hebrides, 332 344, 347. 349 500 1810 totals. 215Malaysia and Singapore. 201 New Zealand, 339 Portugal. t03 annual rates of Atlantic sector. 214Mali, see Sahel Stales Nicaragua, 296 Portuguese in Africa. 102. 217 1810 1880 totals. 216Malta to AD 1000. 116 Niger. see Sahel States in (3uinea-Bissau. 245 peak rate in Arab sector. 215

since AD 000. 119 Nilo-Saharans. total population. Prehistoric, in Angola. 248 Slave trade, American, 277Manchuria, see Inner Mongolia and 207 in Mozambique, 256 Solomon Isles. 332

Manchuria Present day, 241 Portuguese in Brazil. 275. 306 Somalia. 233Marseilles, plague of 1720,56 Niue, 336 Portuguese in France. 102 Somali in Kenya, 252Mauritania, see Sahel States Nomads in medieval central Asia. 128 Primarycycle, 344 French Somaliland, 234Mauritius. 267 in Arabia. 128, 146 Principe. 248 South East Asia, 130Mauryan Empire. 127 in Egypt, 228 Prussia. kingdom of. 71 see also individual countriesMedieval cycle. 347 in Iraq. ISO Puyi. 173 Souihern Africa, 259Mediterranean Europe. 28 in Iran, I 54 Pygmies. 207. 247 see also individual countriesMelanesia. 33! in the Sahel States. 240 Spain. 101Meroe. kingdom of, 235 Norway. 53 Qatar. see Arabia (Gulf Coast) Spaniards in France. 38Mexico. 293 Nubia (Egyptian Province). 226 In America. 275

Mexicans in the USA, 291 2 Reunion. 266 7 n South America 310. 313Miao, 173 Oceania, continental total. 320 Rhodesia, 255 Spanish American Empire. 274MicronesIa. 332 Aboriginal (less Melanesia). 325 Roman Empire. 127 Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 189Migrations ethnic divisions, 324 population distribution, 22 Sudan. 237

from Europe, 31 Oman, 147 Romania.97 Surinam. 304into Europe. 38 9 Otioman Empire. 137. 34

367166

Swaziland and Lesosho, 260 Malawans in, 254see also under Union of South Africa United Arab Emirates, see Arabia (Gulf

Sweden. 53 Coast)medieval kingdom. 52 United States of America (less Hawaii). 287

Switzerland. 87 colonial. 286Syria and the Lebanon. 139 slaves. 286—7

Greeks, 138 Civil War, 287Palestinian Arabs. 142 Ethnic divisions, 287

individual slates. 289—90Tadzhiks. Tajiks Upper Volta, 245

in Afghanistan, 156 Uruguay. 317in Russian Turkestan. 162 USSR. SI

Taiwan, 175Tanganyika. 250 Venezuela, 305Tanzania, 253 Vienna, 90Thailand, 193 Czechs in. 84Thirty Years War. 68. 84 Vietnam. t97Tibetans. 168

see also Chinese TurkestanTogo. 245 West Africa, 243Tokelau, 336 slave trade, 241—2Tonga Isles. 334. 336 West Indians, see Caribbean IslandsTunisia, z~ in England, 44

colonists in, 217 World Population. 342Turkey, 137 Palaeolithic. 14Turkey-in’Asia. 135 primary cycle (10,000 BC AD 500). 344Turkey-in.Europe, 113 medieval cycle (AD 500—1400), 347Turks in Cyprus. 115 modernization cycle (AD 400—2200). 349

in Germany, 38 division between continents. 344. 347. 349World Wars, synopsis of losses,in Greece. 112in Russia, 80 First, 34Second. 35in Yugoslavia, 112in Afghanistan, 156in Iran, 154 Yemen, 147in Chinese Turkestan, 168 Yemenis in Saudi Arabia, 146in Russian Turkestan. 162 Vi. 173in Transcaucasia. I 58 Yugoslavta. 113

Yugoslavs in Germany, 38

Uganda. 253Uighurs, 168 Zaire, 248Union of South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia, 255

Lesotho, 259 Zanzibar. 250

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