I know they are relatively large countries that have been inhabited for a very long time, but so is Europe if taken as a whole. Yet Europe only has about half as many people as just one of these two countries. What historical factors lead to their massive populations?
In: Culture
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A little bit of everything, suitable for farming, dictators promoting childbirth, and perhaps most important, India was many kingdoms forced together through colonial rule (and the independent kingdoms were forced together in opposition to colonialism) and eventually became one nation. If it weren’t for the issues between the Hindus and Muslims, India would grow by nearly half a billion with the populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh, which should tell you a bit more. 2 billion people don’t exist in one country, they exist in many that were forced together. As for China, it’s more just farmland and dictatorships, they’ve had a history of uniting the kingdoms and then separating. The only reason China isn’t several countries now is that the communists don’t want to lose their power, and the outside world is skeptical of separatism, even for valid reasons in the post WW2 conseus.
It’s more geographical than historical.
You need to feed a large population. India and China have lots of suitable farmland. Farming takes a great deal of labor so the more people in your family, the better you can farm, encouraging a large population. Nowadays with modern farming methods and fertilizer, you can produce even more food to support a larger population into the billions.
The other regions that have comparable farmland are the fertile crescent (Middle East) and the Nile flood plains, and the United States. The fertile crescent spanning the Mediterranean, Black, and Red Seas is where farming originally began. However, the history of conflicts there have not allowed stable farming in that region. Despite supporting the Ancient Egyptians, the Nile’s flood plains have been in decline. Lastly, the US is recently settled and most of the farming goes towards exports and animal feed.
Arable land that is good for agriculture. India have 1.7 million square kilometer, US have 1.6, Russia have 1.2, China have 1.1, brazil have 0.7, Australia have 0.47, Canada have 0.46, Argentina have 0.38. As you can see the US, Brazil, Australia, Canada and Argentina are all new world territory that didn’t have much people since they were not connected to the Old world for a long time. Russia is a rather cold country and didn’t developped until the middle ages so that leave us with India and China only. Just for comparaison, Western/Central Europe have around 0.6 millions square kilometer of arable land. So it’s near the top, but still not as much as China or India.
In the 18th century, China’s population, which had been relatively stable at between 50-100 million for almost a thousand years suddenly started surging. The origins of the population surge can be traced to three factors:
1. Extended period of international peace that followed the Manchu conquest of China. (With the country at peace, there was a decline in domestic mortality rate)
2. The Manchu regime carried a major campaign to repair long neglected dikes and irrigation works along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. (This lead to fewer fatalities from flood, drought, water borne diseases and malnutrition)
3. There was a significant rise in female fertility, resulting in a substantial and prolonged “baby boom.”
This population surge beginning in the early 18th century did not abate for more than two centuries thereafter.
People need food to live, food grows on good warm land, China and India has a lot of good warm land. So people grow lots of food on good warm land. More food means more people so india and China has a lot of people.
Big countries with lots of fertile land. The population would be smaller if they were divided into common sizes of countries.
One hypothesis is hunger. If you have a large enough population, 100,000 or more some people will be worse off than others, and some of them will go hungry. Others will see this and want to do something about it. Increasing food production should do the trick. But all that does is create a larger population with a bigger number of starving people. So you keep increasing food production every year to feed the starving masses, and it never helps. It only drives then population increase.
If your country has the resources, land, water, technology, etc, to keep producing more food then the population will also continue to get bigger. Yet the under privileged will continue to go hungry, and their numbers will continue to increase.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Lots of sex because our ancestors didn’t have anything else to do. Plus, more children = more earning members. Plus, a want for male children. So if a female child is born, they again have sex to get a male child. If no, then again. Also, it was a culture to have lots of children back in the days.
Now, the ruling party encourages Hindus to have more children to compete with Muslims.
So, yeah, that’s how we have a 1.3 billion population.
Source: I am from India
Lack of education. Improved medical facilities for child birth. More readily available food. And lots of sex.
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