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

One thing I’d like to add to the conversation: In the case of China, at least, it developed far slower than European countries exactly BECAUSE it had such a high population. England needed the Industrial Revolution to solve most of its problems. China just needed an abundance of labor, which it had. Your premise is slightly backwards.