Pick whichever you like-China, the US and so on would be the most seismic in the effects I’d think, but in general what would happen if one day, all of the people in a country just vanished. No zombies, no aliens, not Rapture (since EVERYONE’s gone) just poof! Would there be a war over the available land/resources?
Nature abhors a vacuum. So yeah, looting would ensue.
What happens after the U.S. population vanishes needs some clarification. Is it just people within the various 50 states and territories (and does that include any foreign nationals who may be visiting) who disappear and does it affect whatever American nationals may be abroad, including all military deployments?
I mean, if the U.S. Navy is still intact, all by itself it’s the most powerful country in the world.
Questions like this, albeit on a much smaller scale, could come into play for other nations.
If Canada was suddenly vacant we could finally put that land to good use. And we would finally be rid of Justin Beiber and Rush. A win-win.
Can we just start with Texas, and see how that goes?
John Birmingham wrote a series of books that essentially uses this idea. He has most of the United States population drop over dead one day.
Unfortunately for you, we left Celine Dion in Las Vegas. We win again!
Neighbouring countries would exercise pro tem governance and set up proconsular legal and administrative bodies to guard and control the vast empty echoing spaces until a new population was installed.
And that’s why it’s handy to have a big army in peacetime.
From What’s Up, Tiger Lily?:
The next line is “Do you realize that most of our population is still packed up in crates?”
I realized after I left that I didn’t sketch out the parameters of the question very well. Assume that everyone in all of the 50 states has vanished at 9:00 p.m.(except for people in planes that are just taking off or landing, just to be random). And for the sake of this argument, all Americans on deployment are vanished too. Poof.
:dubious:
What about all the US citizens on holiday outside the US and permanent expats living overseas? even with deployed troops gone there will be several hundred thousand US citizens left. my wag they would try to form a new government while meanwhile Mexico would take over the south and west and Canada takes the east coast .
meanwhile the minuscule remaining US government would offer unlimited immigration to try and repopulate . Lets say Canada is polite and let’s them kept Washington, D.C. as a symbolic gesture and they try and expand out from there.
How many weeks would pass before anyone would notice? 
The question sounds a bit silly, but isn’t. I can easily imagine a smaller country like Malta or Cyprus or Madagascar being quarantined and depopulated after an outbreak of some disease. Equally, I can imagine Iceland’s population disappearing from a major volcanic event.
For some reason, this puts into my mind the ancient British Army rude song, “The Three Men of Nor-O-Folk” – which goes to great linguistic-gymnastic lengths to make the last line, a repetition of a rude word. The aforesaid three men undergo various misfortunes which have them ultimately sent to hospital; but when they get there, alas,
“There were no beds vacant,
There were no beds vacant,
There were no beds vacant,
Va-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-cnt, cnt, c*nt.”
Sorry – frivolous hijack of interesting speculative thread…
In some contexts, it’s an interesting question whether a legally designated geographic entity refers to a group of people, or rather to a territory. In my work in Mexico, I dealt with a comunidad agraria (a social property village and its lands, usually more “indigenous” than the very similar village type called an ejido) where the original members (recognized by the government as owning collective title to a territory) moved away in the 1930s. Another group later settled on the same land, and later a judge had to figure out if and how to grant them title to the land (which he did end up doing.)
Different scale than the OP’s scenario, but does touch on one of the aspects of it.
If everyone in the US, including US citizens deployed elsewhere, were to instantly vanish, meaning not displaced, but actually POOF, gone, then I’d think the world would be thrown into utter chaos as much of the world is tied to and reliant upon the US machine.
Here’s how I think things could play out over the course of the first year after the vanishing.
Within a week there is panic in the most industrialized nations as small, but necessary obligations (e.g., financial, agricultural, political, etc…) fail to be met.
Within a month there is a disastrously disorganized and uncontrolled mass influx of opportunists into the US from all over the globe, many sanctioned by the governments of the largest nations, as they unsuccessfully attempt to claim US resources and systems that have already begun to fall into disrepair. There is a spike in deaths of America’s new occupants as competing factions send in teams to vie for remaining consumables, such as food and crops, to ship back to their nations before spoilage.
Within two months the populations of various new enclaves throughout the former industrial centers in the US, mostly near or within the largest cities, begin to increase in number as engineers, technicians, politicians, and military personnel are flown or shipped in as the need to revitalize systems and reinstitute markets, and the security of same, becomes increasingly crucial with each passing day. However, because most of the large individual enclaves are controlled by competing nations, motivated by self interest, small disagreements between enclaves quickly escalate into sanctioned skirmishes and attempts at sabotage.
Within three months military presence in the US increases ten-fold from various nations, large but barely functioning air and sea ports in the US are claimed by nations, skirmishes increase, and final attempts to continue the facade of cooperation among nations for the folks back home falls away. Starvation, social unrest, and crime increase markedly throughout the world. Basic systems begin to be neglected as increasing resources are sent to the US.
Within four months it is all out war between the largest nations.
Within six months, revitalization programs in the US are abandoned as resources and military begin to be shipped back to their parent nations to service the needs there. Those who decide to remain in the US are left to fend for themselves.
Within one year, the world enters a new dark age as communication systems begin to fail and feudal law becomes increasingly common. The Mexican government begins a slow and methodical encroachment northward into Texas and beyond.
Nah, they still get stopped at The Alamo.
If everyone on Tuvalu disappeared, the .tv URL business would be thrown into utter chaos. The internet might not survive!
Never mind sudden extinctions. I’ve wondered what happens if a country’s population just keeps falling. There was a Washington Post story a few weeks back saying that Portugal only had something like 40,000 births the past year. Could a situation eventually arise, around 2100 or so, such that only one family, perhaps resident in Brazil, owns most of the land in Portugal? Would Lisbon become some kind of living-history theme park like Colonial Williamsburg?