Eli5:Why do countries in Asia have such high populations and high population densities?
In: 6
China and India are some of the oldest permanent settlements on Earth. Compared to the Middle East and Egypt India and China had much more hospitable temperatures and much more available farmland.
So while the populations of Egypt for example boomed and then stalled when they ran out of land in the Nile delta, China and India just continued to boom.
Europe meanwhile had a very large population that has suffered from several big declines. The Black death set back Europe a couple hundred years in terms of population killing upwards of 30-50% of the population.
While WW1 and WW2 were both devastating to the civilian population and killed off a significant number of young males.
But the most recent population booms are the result of advances in medicine. Most people in North America are shocked to discover that the average infant mortality rate for humans is around 20%.
As recently as the 1950’s families in North America (particularly rural families) would lose as many as 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of their children before the age of 4. My Dad’s family lost 3/7 kids, and my Moms lost 2/7. This would have included my Mom as well, but she had the fortune of being the first kid in the family born in a hospital and the Doctors saved her from dying from contaminated baby formula when she was only 2 months old.
With wide spread access to hospitals this figure has dropped drastically. In North America and Europe the average family is having less kids due to factors like easier access to birth control, Secondary Education and careers pushing people to have families later in life, etc
While in India and China the governments and religions were pushing families to have as many kids as possible. With medical care saving the lives of nearly 20% of those kids the populations exploded.
EDIT: The population in China then exploded so much that they had to introduce the one-child policy
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