Most continents contain in the neighborhood of half a billion people. Asia has 4.5 billion. Why is this?
According to this video, the lower costs of production and refinement of rice or a major contributing factor: The Modern Revolution: Crash Course Big History #8 - YouTube . I’d be interested to know if there are others.
It takes time to fill up a continent. You can divide the continents up into two groups: those that have been settled since pre-history (Africa, Asia, and Europe) and those that have been settled for essentially five hundred years (Australia, North America, and South America). (I realize the second group was originally settled in pre-history as well but those original populations were wiped out and population growth started over a few centuries ago.)
So rank the three “old” continents by size and population:
And the three “new” continents:
I would also note that 3 of the 4 countries with the highest amount of arable land are in Asia (counting Russia as part of Asia for purposes of looking at the bulk of its landmass). China, Russia, and India each have more arable land than all of the EU. Each have more than twice that of Australia, and have almost quadruple that of Nigeria, which ranks 1st among African nations. The US has the most of all, and Canada, Brazil, and others rank highly too, but as **Little Nemo **indicated, they are new world countries with shorter histories.
This question does not make sense. A continent is not an objective thing. The continents also have great variation in their livable land areas, to only compare by names of continents is like asking why not as many people live in a two floor villa as a 18 floor apartment block.
I suggest you start to first compare the arable land areas.
It is even better to compare the arable land area by the continent and the density of inhabitation by square meter of arable land, only then do you see if there is a real great difference.
Its a good question.
So far as I am concerned Asia = South-East Asia + China, Korea and Japan. Nobody I know views India or Pakistan as part of Asia. They are in the Indian subcontinent: ethnically, culturally, amd geographically quite seperate. A thousand miles or more.
Anyway the question is well made - the vast majority of humans live in a small area stemming from South China west and further south.
Doesn’t viewing it as a subcontinent necessarily indicate the belief that it is part of the continent proper?
Regardless, OP attributed a population of 4.5 billion to Asia, which is only valid if the traditional view of Asia is taken, India included.
Really? That’s odd. India and Pakistan are South Asian, and often referred to as such. Now, it’s true that in American English, the generic “Asian” usually refers to East Asian (whereas in the UK, it often/generally means South Asian), but I can’t imagine anyone who went to grade school or played a game of Risk disagreeing about India being part of Asia. We always learned east of the Urals and east of the Bosphorus river in Turkey.
Since humans do not hibernate, warm countries got a huge head start,and accumulated vast populations in the era before modern architecture made it possible to survive cold winters and crops could be harvested all year. Shelter and food storage are expensive. That’s not the only factor, but would play a substantial part in shifting the balance.
Fair enough.
I made the point because the traditional European view of the globe is that Asia extends from the Middle East into Eastern infinity. There is no conception of Pacisifica or Oceania. There are vast millions who escape the “Asian” label but who have stemmed from that cultural base.
Regardless, most humans live in Asia and it is interesting to wonder why?
I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. Spanish-speaking countries, for example, recognize “Oceania,” including Australia and all the Pacific Islands, as a continent (and recognize the Americas as a single continent). As has been noted, there are various systems for recognizing continents, which may vary from four to seven depending on definition.
The reason that Asia dominates so much is that the two highest areas of populationdensity, eastern China and the Ganges valley, are found in that continent. But high population densities are also found in Europe and in some areas of Africa, such as the Nile Valley, West Africa, the Ethiopian Highlands, and Rwanda-Burundi.
The areas of highest population density are the more fertile areas of the Old World where population has had a long time to build up. The indigenous population of the New World underwent a severe decline about 500 years ago due to the introduction of Old World diseases, and the combination of natural increase and immigration from the Old World hasn’t yet had time to catch up.
Have you even looked at a population map? This is not really a major factor. Some of the areas of highest population density are in northern China and northern Europe, which experience severe winters, while most of the tropics have low population densities.
That and multiple other issues.
The huge populations are a result of massive arable land. Australia has very little, it’s mostly dry, and being isolated, the locals did not develop farming. The Americas were late to the game, and other than the Mississippi, most of the area elsewhere was swamp, desert, or rainforest. (Contrary to popular belief, rainforest is not prime agricultural land. Once cleared, the excess rainfall leaches away all the nutrients very fast.) The great plains have erratic rain cycles an without modern agriculture sucking dry the deep Ogallala aquifer, could not sustain even the moderate yields seen today.
Much of the rest of the continents, like Siberia, Northern America, and Patagonia, had winter cycles that meant a society that could not create and store vast quantities of food would not have a large population. Europe, especially northern Europe, barely makes the grade in climate.
Check the map of population densities. Other than the massive growth due to imported foods in the last century, the most dense places are the lucky locations that have fertile soil and ample reliable rain - two or three extensive major river valleys in China, the shorelines of Asia from Indonesia to Korea and Japan; the huge Ganges (india) and Indus (Pakistan) river systems. Along with reliable crops comes the ability in many places to have multiple crops per year. In a recent book, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the ability of the Chinese rice farmers to squeeze sometimes 3 crops a year out of their rice paddies, with careful management.
Why isn’t Europe as dense? They only get 1 crop a year. the massive benefits of the “green revolution” only happened in the last century or two - before that, food production limited population. Consider the size of North America’s population once modern agriculture took off…
When farmers have 4 or 5 children (who survive) it doesn’t take long for a population to quadruple. Populations generally expand to use available land capacity, until the population becomes richer - usually with industrialization. On a farm, children are cheap labour and your old age security. In an industrial society, children are a drain on your income and security is provided (allegedly) by the state and savings.
The weird phrasing of the question makes it seem nuts (after all, Asia is the largest continent, and one would expect it to have the largest population), but it really isn’t.
Asia has a population of 225/sq. mi. That’s more than any other continent; Europe comes closest, at 188/sq. mi. Yet Asia has vast amounts of interior and northerly regions that are sparsely populated - probably proportionately more than Europe, although I haven’t checked this. Granted that the other continents, except Europe, have various obvious reasons for proportionate underpopulation, the population density of Asia still seems relatively quite high.
As an American, I’ve found looking at Australia to be quite startling. As a child I saw it as sort of an upside-down America where the people talked funny but was more or less like home. Not really. Australia is like a US that is 95% Arizona plus Key West, Miami, Philly, and Boston. There are no mountains full of old-time hillbillies singing folk music, no vast fields of cotton, maize, tobacco, and wheat as far as the eye can see like you can find in the South and Midwest here. Kansas as a region is like one huge cornfield, incredibly fertile and unceasingly flat. The middle of Oz is desert, sand, heat, and scavengers. Nothing really grows that well there.
And sometimes their barns explode.
The tables here on world population distribution are interesting.
Asia has held the bulk of the population for the last 500 years. That implies it’s due to intrinsic factors, like food production, rather than technological or cultural ones. (Food production is often technological, but I’m using it to mean transportation and distribution.)
Population growth has stagnated in the Americas and Europe and zoomed in Africa over the past 50 years, and that is mostly cultural. Family size is inversely correlated with prosperity. China has artificially controlled population and India hasn’t, which will probably soon make India number one. The two of them combined are already equal to the rest of the world combined, a staggering thought.
India have tried to control their population by paying people to be sterilised. This has been controversial in India and elsewhere. They, like China, also have a high mortality rate among female babies.
Are you yourself Chinese? The notion that India, Pakistan et al are not a part of Asia, is a common convention within China, but not elsewhere IME.
And also, look at the population patterns within Europe and North America. Places like France, Germany, England, and Poland support large-scale agriculture that isn’t too difficult. They have huge population densities. Now, look at northern Sweden. There aren’t as many people! I wonder why?
People in Asia have engaged in sexual reproduction far more often.
China = population density of 365/sq. mile
Netherlands = population density of 1,259/sq. mile
Malta = population density of 3,229/sq. mile
The devil, as is often the case, is in the details :).
