This area contains 36% of the world's population. A total of 2.6 billion people. But these are
only 2 countries and only make up 8.2% of the land on Earth. 2 out of every five people
alive today are living in one of these countries. How did China and India end up with some many
people.
First we’ll take a look at their geographic locations. For a society to maintain large
populations they need access to water, good soil, and comfortable climate. Major civilisations
first sprang up around rivers. If you take a look at a map of the world's major rivers
you can see that 10 are in a freezing environment. 5 are in rain forest environments which are
not great for agriculture. And 4 were isolated from the rest of humanity. Leaving 7 rivers
that would allow for major civilisations to develop. 4 of these are in India and China.
It is around these 7 rivers that some of the first civilisations started to spring up.
India has the Indo-Gangetic Plain a 255 million hectare (630 million acres) area that is one
of the most fertile places on Earth. An excellent agricultural zone that acted as the cradle
for one of the world’s first major civilisations. China has the Sichuan Basin fed by the Yangtze
river, the 3rd largest on Earth and the North China Plains fed by the Yellow River, the
6th largest on Earth. Both of these areas were able to produce abundant food for the
Chinese. Today they have some of the world's highest population density.
These plains provided both civilisations with water and silt for agriculture as well as
rivers for trade and commerce. China alone has 50,000 rivers that are usable for agriculture.
Compared to the other early civilisations China and India had a massive advantage. Egypt
outside of the Nile was too dry and hot, the civilisations in Iraq suffered the same. Iran
being another ancient state did not have access to a major river and so could not grow at
the same rate. And unlike Egypt, China and India could rely on more than one river. The
Mississippi river civilisation was unfortunately isolated from most of humanity and arrived
much later than both the Chinese and Indians (12000BC vs 70000BC), the whole genocide thing
didn’t help Native American numbers either. Most of the world is not suited for dense
settlement. Arabia, the Amazons, most of Canada & Alaska, Central Africa, Siberia, and the
Sahara desert are all harsh to human life. While Mexico, Central Asia, and Australia
do not have enough inland water to support large scale agriculture. They are also located
with the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. Which when you look seem to be the best areas for
human settlement.
20% of the world's arable land is within the border of China and India. They are in the
top 4 countries by arable land available. The US has a huge amount of land but unfortunately
disease and conquest destroyed it's native population. It is still the 3rd most populous
nation in spite of that. And most of Russia’s land is too cold to support agriculture. Leaving
China and India as the countries with the best agricultural lands. India is 50% arable
land compared to countries like Australia, Brasil and Russia which are all below 10%.
Because of this India and China produce 50% of the world's rice and 30% of its wheat.
Both of the regions were also gifted with Rice as a staple crop. If you want to sustain
massive population growth rice is the crop you would chose to do it. It provides more
calories than any other crop field of the same size. Even today it accounts for ⅕
of the world calories. Rice is also labour intensive and requires large families to harvest
which encourages people to have more children. Areas of the world that produce rice have
some of the highest population density. Europe by contrast did not have a staple crop as
good as rice until the potato arrived from the Americas in the 1500s. After that crop
arrived the population in Europe soared. Well Until...
China and India also have excellent natural defences that helped defend them from outside
invasions and reduced warfare in the region . The Himalayas protect India to the north,
the Thar desert and Indus river in the west and jungles to the east. Any enemy coming
from the south would have to do so by ship. China has Siberia to the north, the Gobi desert
to the west, and the Tibetan Plateau to the south. And the Pacific guards the east. These
natural borders may not have stopped all invasions from outsiders, but they did make it difficult.
Finally they have access to the Middle-East and Europe. This allowed for trade such as
the Silk Road to bring in wealth and for the exchange of ideas and technologies that civilisations
in the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania missed out on.
China and India were both some of the first agricultural societies. They had a massive
head start. They began to farm around 8000-9000 BC. Populations grew fast due to the favourable
conditions. The Indus valley in India grew rich off trade with Mesopotamia and the population
boomed due to the abundant resources. China was constructing massive irrigation projects
and canals to increase crop yields while most of the world still relied on rainwater to
hydrate their crops. Both China and India are prone to flooding and to combat this large
scale hydraulic projects were necessary. The organisation and unity needed to build these
strengthened cultural ties within the early civilisations. Both of these nations united
under a single ruler early on. India by Asoka in 250 BC and China shortly later in 200BC
by the Qin Dynasty. This unity helped form the massive countries that they are today,
rather than many smaller states that we see in Europe.
The populations of India and China continued to grow while Europe was set back by plagues.
The Plague of Justinian killed 50% of the population in the 6th century ad. And again
in the 14th century the Black Death killed up to 50 million of Europe’s suspected 80
million population. The Mongols as well wiped out 90% of the Iranian
population and ravaged the rest of the Middle-East and Asia. Both effected China but it managed
to recover faster, while India escaped the Wrath of the Khans.
Unfortunately for the Native Americans, European conquest and disease would wipe out 99% of
them. By the 17th century the population of China
was 150m and India 100m. For most of history both of these nations have made up 60% of
the world's population. India was the largest economy in the world in the ancient and medieval
periods. Containing up to a third of the world's wealth.
The industrial revolution took hold in Europe first and their populations soared. Between
1700 and 1900 Europe's population grew from 100m to 400m. Medicine increased lifespan
and decreased child deaths. The population of Britain increased from 10 million to 40
million in the 19th century. The United States saw its population grow from around 5.3 million
in 1800 to 106 million in 1920. After modernisation birth rates fell and their
populations stabilised. Yet populations in Asia continued to grow as they industrialised
later. When they did finally begin to industrialise the populations in the already fertile regions
began to skyrocket. China's population rose from approximately
430 million in 1850 to 580 million in 1953, and now stands at over 1.3 billion. The population
of the Indian subcontinent, which was about 125 million in 1750, increased to 389 million
in 1941 today, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are home to about 1.6 billion people.
During the 20th century the Chinese leader Mao encouraged his people to have as many
children as possible. This led to massive population growth up until 1978 when after
Mao had died the Chinese implemented the one child policy.
Indian culture has always included large families and this tradition continued into the modern
day and after some forced sterilisation in the 1970s some Indians are suspicious of family
planning incentives. Some parts of the nation has birth rates on par with European nations
now however. Today both China and India have populations
higher than every other continent, bar the one they are in.
So that's it. The strategic locations of China and India, as well as their unique historical
situations set them up to be the most populated nations on Earth. I hope you enjoyed this
video.