eli5: Why do Asian countries have such high populations?

Question

What the title says. India and china alone have almost 3 billion. Asia has over half the worlds population. Why has this historically been the case even though many Asian countries developed far slower than European countries.

In: Other

Answer 1

Rice is pretty efficient at converting the sun’s energy into digestible carbohydrates. Also, there’s a lot of space, so we’re not killing each other in huge droves at a time. These civilizations have also been here for a really really long time – Chinese, and Indian Empires/people’s have been around for thousands upon thousands of years.