I have no idea how they came up with these figures – especially considering that many of these countries were closed to the West, but according to the Casset Almanack for the year 1826:
The most populous city in the world was Jeddo, in Japan, with a population of 1,680,000. Peking (Bejing) had 1,500,000; London had 1,274,000; Haps-Ischen, 1,100,000; Calcutta 900,000, Madras 817,000; Nanking 800,000 and Paris had 717,300.
National/regional populations were as follows: China – 264,500,000; British Empire – 136,500,000; Russia – 59,000,000; Japan – 40,500,000; France 31,500,000; Austria – 30,000,000; Turkish Empire – 24,500,000; Anam – 23,000,000; Spain – 15,000,000; Morocco – 15,000,000; Persia – 13,500,000; Afghanistan – 12,800,000; Low Countries – 12,800,000; Burmese – 12,000,000; Corea 12,000,000; Prussia – 11,370,000; United States – 10,645,000; Naples – 7,500,000; and Brazil had 5,300,000.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you have a link to that? Danke.
No link – just a copy of the newspaper it came out of.
By “Jeddo” I suspect he means Edo, the pre-modern title of today’s tokyo.
A lot has changed, but Tokyo and Beijing are still among the biggest cities in the world. ‘Closed to the west’? Well, remember that Stephenson’s Rocket, the first major steam train in Britain was introduced in 1829, so the European industrial revolution hadn’t yet begun. In fact many Europeans looked to China as a model of enlightened despotism during the 1700s.
Some anthropologists also argue that the antiseptic qualities of tea, believe it or not, was what allowed for the high population density in Tokyo and Beijing. European cities, on the other hand, struggled with water-borne disease if they got too big. Another factor producing large populations in East Asia is rice-based agriculture, which produces more grain per acre and is labor intensively grown.
So, not too surprising that Tokyo and Beijing were the largest cities in the world in the pre-industrial age.
Yes, it is true that rice culture tends to raise population density, which is why I’m surprised that Korea only had a population of 12M at that point. I would expect it to be in the 20-30M range.
Countries like China (I guess Japan, Korea as well) have census since ancient times. The main purpose was to collect tax, and military draft.
Some taxes are, as you know, charged per head. Draft as well.
So these numbers are from the historical data these countries kept.
They may not be entirely accurate. e.g. in China, in the beginning of each dynasty, when people fled the war zones, population in usually under-estimated.
http://geography.about.com/lib.....11201a.htm
City Year
Became #1 Population Information
Memphis, Egypt 3100 BCE Well over 30,000
Akkad, Babylonia (Iraq) 2240
Lagash, Babylonia (Iraq) 2075
Ur, Babylonia (Iraq) 2030 65,000
Thebes, Egypt 1980
Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq) 1770
Avaris, Egypt 1670
Memphis, Egypt 1557
Thebes, Egypt 1400
Nineveh, Assyria (Iraq) 668
Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq) 612 First above 200,000
Alexandria 320
Pataliputra (Patna), India 300
Changan (Xi’an), China 195 400,000
Rome 25 450,000 (100 CE)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 340 CE 400,000 (500)
Ctesiphon, Iraq 570
Changan (Xi’an), China 637 400,000 (622); 600,000 (800)
Baghdad, Iraq 775 First over 1 million; 700,000 (800)
Cordova, Spain 935
Kaifeng, China 1013 400,000 (1000); 442,000 (1100)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 1127
Merv (Mary), Turkmenistan 1145 200,000 (1150)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 1153
Fez (Fes), Morocco 1170
Hangzhou, China 1180 255,000 (1200); 320,000 (1250)
Cairo, Egypt 1315
Hangzhou, China 1348 432,000 (1350)
Nanking, China 1358 487,000 (1400)
Beijing, China 1425 600,000 (1450); 672,000 (1500)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 1650 700,000 (1650 & 1700)
Beijing, China 1710 900,000 (1750); 1.1 million (1800)
London, United Kingdom 1825 First over 5 million; 1.35 million (1825); 2.32 million (1850); 4.241 million (1875); 6.480 million (1900)
New York 1925 First over 10 million; 7.774 million (1925), 12.463 million (1950)
Tokyo 1965 First over 20 million; 23 million (1975)
http://geography.about.com/lib.....11201e.htm
Name Population
1 Beijing, China 1,100,000
2 London, United Kingdom 861,000
3 Guangzhou, China 800,000
4 Edo (Tokyo), Japan 685,000
5 Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 570,000
6 Paris, France 547,000
7 Naples, Italy 430,000
8 Hangzhou, China 387,000
9 Osaka, Japan 383,000
10 Kyoto, Japan 377,000
This shows how different data source may differ, and how incomplete these databases are.
WangKon936
Maybe that could be due to the fact that 70% of Korea is mountainous. Just leaving only 30% of land to be used for living and farming. I think that would probably limit population growth.
The only hit on Google for Haps-Ischen is this page (now there will be two references). What is Haps-Ischen?
I guess the Haps refers to the House of Hapsburgs (Habsburg) the royal family of the Holy Roman Empire. As for Ischen… someplace in Germany?
dokdoforever,
Hmmmm….maybe, although I doubt it. I would have thought that most German cities had well-defined names at that time, even with whatever Franco-English bastardization they were known as. The Hungarian for Vienna is Bécs – surely Vienna was the biggest city in Austro-Hungary at that time. It does sound Germanic though, Ischen. Wikipedia reckons the population of Berlin in 1825 was 220,000.
I’m thinking it might be some strange Romanization of some strange foreign variation like Taikyu or Daqiu, although it doesn’t sound like it is in East Asia. I can’t think what typo it could be, perhaps just an in-joke?
At any rate I think we should set up a memorial page for the lost city of Haps-Ischen, 1,100,000 inhabitants, vanished without a trace.
The German for Vienna is of course Wien. And the German for Berlin is Berlin.
Yeah you could be right. It would seem reasonable to assume that Haps-Ischen would also show up in the other top ten list for 1800, except that Calcutta, Madras and Nanking are not including in that list either.
As the fourth largest city, maybe it is another name for Guangzhou, Hangzhou, or Istanbul. Istanbul could be Ischen in another language perhaps.
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