# Why has China always had so MANY people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 16, 2018, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260 "2018-05-16T04:19:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/41 "2018-05-16T18:03:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I think there might be something to this, but I don’t agree with all your details. The An Lushan Rebellion, the Three Kingdoms War and the Mongol conquests all happened in the last 2000 years, and all killed millions of people. BUT, even before those happened, China had a huge, growing population. It might have been that the land lent itself to growth, as others have said; then China had a long time to grow, as others have said, and theses trends became self-reinforcing over time. China developed a sophisticated society that could support a large population earlier than anywhere else, and just kept on growing. Those conflicts were horrible, but there were decades, even centuries between them, when China was more or less at peace under a single government. Whereas Europe has not had a central authority since the Fall of Rome, and different parts have been in almost continuous conflict since that time. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/42 "2018-05-16T18:12:30Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > …when China was more or less at peace under a single government. Whereas Europe has not had a central authority since the Fall of Rome, and different parts have been in almost continuous conflict since that time. Maybe Taoism/Buddhism had a role in that whereas Europe was going through Abrahamic religions. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/43 "2018-05-16T19:00:34Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > Those conflicts were horrible, but there were decades, even centuries between them, when China was more or less at peace under a single government. Whereas Europe has not had a central authority since the Fall of Rome, and different parts have been in almost continuous conflict since that time. Yes, but China has been densely populated since the bronze age. China has had various waves of central rule and collapse of central rule. China has gone through innumerable wars, rebellions, invasions, conquests, massacres, revolutions, famines, and natural disasters. Indian history is the same way. And what happens after the wars and destruction? The peasants go back to farming, and the productive farmland produces lots of food, and the population rebounds with the surplus, until there is no more surplus. Europe has been poorer and less populated and technologically behind India and China and the Middle East for most of history. It’s only in the 1600s that Europe started to catch up. Lack of central government is part of it. The Roman Empire wasn’t primarily a “European” empire, it was a Mediterranean Empire. The Roman Empire was famously held together by grain imports…from Egypt and North Africa. Wars only affect population when the peasants are killed and can’t farm anymore. And when you look at the long history of medieval European wars, we see a common pattern–the aristocrats fight limited wars, the purpose of which is to see who gets to rule and exploit the existing base of peasant farmers. The peasants are part of the prize to be won by conquering various lands, not enemies to destroy. Sure there are sometimes examples of peasants being put to the sword–but only when conquering the land isn’t an option. China has had unified rule more often than Europe because it’s geographically more unified. Again, we’re talking China proper here. China has variously ruled various peripheral regions in various was over the millennia, but those conquests were fueled by superior armies fed by surpluses created by superior productive farms. And central China doesn’t have any particular natural geographic barriers like Europe does. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/44 "2018-05-16T19:16:54Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Well, I guess my thinking has been strongly influenced by the case of my hair dresser who, about 20 years ago, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. After getting that diagnosis and treatment options from two purely western doctors, she went to an Asian doctor who practiced holistic eastern medicine as well and our standard western medicine. His treatment cured her of her cervical cancer without surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatments, and it hasn’t returned in all of these intervening years. > > Maybe she just got lucky. There are cases of cancer going into remission for no apparent medical reason. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable if I suggest that the number of inferences required to extrapolate the cause of Chinese population growth from your hairdresser’s experience puts a burden on fundamental logic fair greater than it can reasonably bear. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/45 "2018-05-16T19:30:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yes, but China has been densely populated since the bronze age. China has had various waves of central rule and collapse of central rule. China has gone through innumerable wars, rebellions, invasions, conquests, massacres, revolutions, famines, and natural disasters. Indian history is the same way. > > And what happens after the wars and destruction? The peasants go back to farming, and the productive farmland produces lots of food, and the population rebounds with the surplus, until there is no more surplus. > > Europe has been poorer and less populated and technologically behind India and China and the Middle East for most of history. It’s only in the 1600s that Europe started to catch up. Lack of central government is part of it. The Roman Empire wasn’t primarily a “European” empire, it was a Mediterranean Empire. The Roman Empire was famously held together by grain imports…from Egypt and North Africa. > > Wars only affect population when the peasants are killed and can’t farm anymore. And when you look at the long history of medieval European wars, we see a common pattern–the aristocrats fight limited wars, the purpose of which is to see who gets to rule and exploit the existing base of peasant farmers. The peasants are part of the prize to be won by conquering various lands, not enemies to destroy. Sure there are sometimes examples of peasants being put to the sword–but only when conquering the land isn’t an option. > > China has had unified rule more often than Europe because it’s geographically more unified. Again, we’re talking China proper here. China has variously ruled various peripheral regions in various was over the millennia, but those conquests were fueled by superior armies fed by surpluses created by superior productive farms. And central China doesn’t have any particular natural geographic barriers like Europe does. China has also been far more subject than Europe to invasions from steppe nomads, who (sometimes) care nothing for the life of peasants. The history of China is replete with such invasions - the primary purpose of the “Great Wall of China” was to keep 'em out (another purpose was to keep taxable peasants in … ). Europe is reasonably lucky in this respect - it has much more varied and difficult terrain, once one is past the plains of Hungary. Sure, it suffered the occasional Huns, but such incursions were relatively rare compared with what China suffered. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/46 "2018-05-16T20:21:00Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > “ **Nice** cold” is easy to say from the comfort of Israel. 😉 But they do kill off most of the insects. Yup, a nice cold is a [blue extra kick](http://www.swixsport.com/Products/Wax-Tuning/Grip/V-Waxes/V40-Blue-Extra-Grip-Wax-45g2) [F4 glide](http://www.swixsport.com/Products/Wax-Tuning/Glider/F4-Easy-Wax-Line/F4-Premium-Cold-Glide-Rub-On-60g2) day, but all those months spent [frolicking in the snow](https://youtu.be/jxipVxQNV2Y) are months when there’s nothing growing locally. Prior to industrialization, that kept the Great Lakes dinner table based on local hunting and fishing, supplemented by non-meat foraging, with limited garden plot or very small scale agriculture at the southern end of the Great Lakes, rather than relying on bulk transportation as we do today. At the top of the Great Lakes in Canadian Shield country, it’s rock, trees and water, with only the [occasional fertile valley](https://imgbox.com/yynckYPn), so even if it were not “nice cold” to “freeze your nuts off cold” for almost half the year, it still would not be a friendly land for farming. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/47 "2018-05-16T20:35:11Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > I was talking historically - like 1000s or more years ago. Then you shouldn’t have used the present tense. And we’re only talking about a difference of 1000 years in uptake, millennia ago. Wheat is an import to both regions, and in China, it just replaced millet, so it’s not like the Chinese were ever a one-grain monoculture. Point being, you’d have to look elsewhere for any China-India difference in historical high population maintenance (if such is the case, I don’t know). ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/48 "2018-05-16T23:51:50Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > Another thing is China didn’t ban polygamy until the early 20th century…it wasn’t uncommon for the the wealthy guys to have up to 8 wives I doubt polygyny was much of a factor; only the richest men indulged in it, and only the Emperor’s had large harems. ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/49 "2018-05-17T02:41:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > … > Europe has been poorer and less populated and technologically behind India and China and the Middle East for most of history. It’s only in the 1600s that Europe started to catch up. Lack of central government is part of it. The Roman Empire wasn’t primarily a “European” empire, it was a Mediterranean Empire. The Roman Empire was famously held together by grain imports…from Egypt and North Africa. > … > China has had unified rule more often than Europe because it’s geographically more unified. Again, we’re talking China proper here. China has variously ruled various peripheral regions in various was over the millennia, but those conquests were fueled by superior armies fed by surpluses created by superior productive farms. And central China doesn’t have any particular natural geographic barriers like Europe does. Cecil Adams weighed in on a related topic 20 years ago, and says something pretty similar, though looking at it from the opposite end: [Why did Europeans dominate the world and not vice-versa?](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1238/how-come-europeans-dominated-the-rest-of-the-world-and-not-vice-versa/) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/50 "2018-05-17T06:21:44Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > Forgot what is probably the main reason. Since China was united over 2000 years ago by The Yellow Emperor (Qin Shi Huang Di) it’s been under central political rule with no major (i.e. country encompassing, which is geographically near impossible) wars that drastically reduced the population. China as a country has historically expanded, but rarely contracted. > > There’s also the importance of filial piety (common to all Asian cultures) where large families ensure that there will always children to care for their live and deceased relatives. I call BS. No offence Lingyi but I think you’re claiming a mythical “Chinese culture or concept” where it doesn’t really exist… The Qin Emperor controlled what is now a tiny part of the Yellow River region of China. Even core China (excluding Manchuria, Tibet, Xinjiang) is much more recent. “the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide” (话说天下大势，分久必合，合久必分). Romance of the 3 Kingdoms circa 200 AD. It’s a freaking myth that China has 2000+ years of history. There are long periods of dynasties, decline and fall, anarchy, invasion by nomadic tribes, etc. The Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) was rivaled by Tibet – so much so the emperor sent his daughter as a bribe. The Chinese claim the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) as theirs, even though it was basically a pimple on the ass of Genghis Khan’s empire. BTW, Genghis Khan and descendents spread a lot of seed (not sure the [veracity](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.Wv0ek_ZFzD4)of this web site per say, but let’s just say a Mongolian in the woodpile ain’t exactly front page news). ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/51 "2018-05-17T06:39:08Z")
IIRC from Malcolm Gladwell’s explanation of why Chinese are good at math (!?) he mentions not only the productivity of rice paddies, but also that properly managed a farmer could get 3 crops a year from his fields. But yes, the Great Lakes area is NOT really good agricultural land like the Chinese or India areas. For one thing, besides winters, it was covered with massive trees, someone of an impediment for the people without metal tools. Those lands that are agricultural tended to not be just off a large river for irrigation as needed. A more logical area would be the Mississippi valley, which would be analogous to the Yangtze and Ganges… and surprise, despite having only a few centuries of agriculture to build on, there was a massive civilization spread around the central valley - the mound builders built huge… mounds (!) with primitive tools, and some cities were on the order of 10,000 people. Some argue that climate change did them in, like the Viking Greenlanders; others suggest it was European diseases. Left to their own devices, there was a good chance they would over a millenia or two reach a level comparable to the Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/52 "2018-05-17T14:06:27Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > For one thing, besides winters, it was covered with massive trees, someone of an impediment for the people without metal tools. Isn’t forest the climax vegetation in most of the Chinese river valleys? So the original agriculturalists would have contended with massive trees. A lot of work to clear, but once done, arable land is much easier to maintain. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/53 "2018-05-17T14:38:09Z")
Clearing forests without iron axes is problematic. There was copper traded (and mined in the furter east (e.g. [Porte de l’Enfer](https://www.vandonkelaar.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/vanDonkelaar_hellsGate.jpg) just downstream of the Mattawa River’s Grand Pariseau Falls), but the closest iron implements were on the Pacific coast. Far less difficult to hunt, fish and forage. By contrast, [China had iron implements from way back](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metallurgy_in_China#Iron_Age). ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/54 "2018-05-17T15:42:39Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I doubt polygyny was much of a factor; only the richest men indulged in it, and only the Emperor’s had large harems. My (Chinese) mother-in-law’s grandfather had 3 wives, and he was not a rich man. She just turned 70, so the marriages would have been around the 1910s or so. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/55 "2018-05-17T16:04:44Z")
Anyway, polygamy doen’t have any impact on birth rates. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/56 "2018-05-17T17:38:01Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Isn’t forest the climax vegetation in most of the Chinese river valleys? So the original agriculturalists would have contended with massive trees. A lot of work to clear, but once done, arable land is much easier to maintain. The natives of the Great Lakes area practiced migratory slash-and-burn agriculture. So they’d burn down the area they wanted to turn into field, then plant - but exhaust the soil and have to move within a few years. (Plus, they also relied on some hunting). Maybe if they’d had another few millennia to perfect their technique they would have figured out how to stay in one place and replenish the soil - which would then lead to population expansion. But corn (maize) had only been available as a staple crop for about a millennia. They were still nomads. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/57 "2018-05-17T19:45:04Z")
Any chance that cleanliness standards would have affected things significantly? ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/58 "2018-05-17T20:27:33Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Isn’t forest the climax vegetation in most of the Chinese river valleys? So the original agriculturalists would have contended with massive trees. A lot of work to clear, but once done, arable land is much easier to maintain. No sure about China, but in India the Ganges picks up a lot of silt in its early life on the mountains (Himalayas). Once it makes it to the plains, it decelerates and deposits that silt. This combined with raging rivers during the monsoons, results in the river changing course (sometimes it moves a mile away from its original path). This effectively kills large trees. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/59 "2018-05-17T20:34:01Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Any chance that cleanliness standards would have affected things significantly? How clean was the average medieval Chinese peasant? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260/60 "2018-05-17T20:53:36Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Any chance that cleanliness standards would have affected things significantly? What makes you think that Europeans were infested with lice and encrusted with shit, while Chinese and Indians were clean? Monty Python? Subsistence farming isn’t for people who are afraid to get their hands dirty, that’s for sure. But it isn’t any easier or cleaner in Hebei than it is in Tuscany or Flanders. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-china-always-had-so-many-people/814260.md?page=4)