China is the most populous country in the world

In late October 2011, the world's population exceeded 7 billion. The fact that the most populous country in the world - China, is known to everyone, and this is a fact from time immemorial. For the entire foreseeable history of human civilization , China's population has always been the most numerous. It is no accident that the demographic problems are especially large here.

History

In the middle of the XIX century, every third person on the planet was Chinese. The most populous country in the world at that time read about 420 million inhabitants, and there were some 1.25 billion people worldwide. The problems of shortage of land suitable for farming, despite the large size of this country, were relevant for China always, but at a time when the majority of the population was engaged in agriculture, they acquired a giant scale.

Since 1850, a bloody war began in the Middle Kingdom, unleashed by the Taiping, which inhabited the southern regions of the country. They rebelled against the Manchu empire Qing, on the side of which the foreign armies - English and French - appeared. For a decade and a half, 20 to 30 million people died. The oldest population of the world's most populous country was able to restore only to the beginning of another war - the First World War.

The emergence of the PRC

The consequences of the war with Japan were not as catastrophic for China as the results of the Taiping uprising. Despite the fact that the losses of the Chinese army were eight times greater than that of Imperial Japan, the innumerable resources of internal China led to the fact that by the end of the war the population of its population had increased to 538 million.

The war against Japan was replaced by the civil war of the People's Liberation Army of China against the Kuomintang. As a result of the victory of Mao Zedong's troops, the most populous country of the world continued to exist under a new name - the People's Republic of China.

The most stringent demographic policy

First, the new authorities supported the formation of large families. By 1960, more than 650 million people lived in China. But the extreme economic policy of the Chinese Communist Party , led by the "great helmsman", led to a catastrophic situation with the provision of food for the population. From the consequences of the famine, according to various sources, from 20 to 40 million people died. But the losses were compensated by high birth rate, and by the beginning of the eighties the population of China was 969 million inhabitants.

One of the means to combat the shortage of agricultural products, Mao considered the restriction of fertility. The CCP launched another campaign, now under the slogan "One family - one child." Under this motto, legislation was adopted providing for a system of strict penalties for the appearance of a second child in the family. As a result, the rate of population growth in recent decades has declined.

Nuances of Statistics

Although today only one in five people is a citizen of the PRC, and the most densely populated country in the world is a dwarf state of Monaco, statistics only formally reflects the demographic situation. The number of Chinese in one km ² is 648 people, which is three times less than the number of Monaco citizens in the same area, but given the difference in the size of these two states, one can say that this demographic figure in the Middle Kingdom is one of the highest in the world. World.

This is due to the extremely uneven distribution of residents. In some regions, especially in large megacities, the density of the population is several times higher than in areas where there is not even arable land. Perhaps Bangladesh is indeed the most densely populated agrarian country in the world, but the urgency of the ancient Chinese proverb "Many people, but little earth" is only growing stronger.

Prospects

The policy of restricting the growth of population in China is bearing fruit, though, while giving rise to other problems - the sharp aging of the population and the growing disparity between the number of men and women. Although citizens have found various ways to circumvent the bans on the second child - for example, women give birth in other countries where children obtain other citizenship - the PRC government is ready to reconsider tough demographic policies, especially in rural areas.

According to experts' forecasts, by 2050 another answer to the question of which is the most populated country in the world will become reality. Their calculations show that the place of China may well be occupied by another giant from developing countries - India. Even today, the gap between the indicators of the two states is not so great. According to statistics, as of the beginning of 2016, there are 1,374,440,000 people in China, and 1,283,370,000 in India. If we take into account the slowdown in the population growth rate of today's leader and the steady growth of this indicator in one of the most dynamically developing countries in The world and its economic potential, it becomes clear the validity of such expectations.