Population Growth in Java in the 19th Century: A New Interpretation

Abstract

In demographic literature Java occupies a special position. It is the island where in the nineteenth century a 'population explosion' occurred. In other developing countries this took place in the twentieth century. Following the official figures Java had a population size of about 4.5 million in 1815 (Raffles's Census) and 28.5 million in 1900. The result is an extraordinary rate of growth of 2.2% per year. In this paper it is argued that it is impossible to correct the data by adjusting them. A more promising method is to study the factors which are responsible for the demographic situation, i.e. economic conditions, the so-called pax neerlandica and the health situation in the period 1800-1850. This period has been specially studied, because it is crucial for the calculation of population size which is normally based on the 1815 period. It is suggested that Java cannot really claim to be an exceptional case in the period 1800-1850. This means that the growth rate - in line with the estimates of Carr Saunders and Sauvy -has to be estimated (greater accuracy is not possible) as between 0.5% and 1.0); per annum. On the basis of estimates and calculations, the population size of Java may have been somewhere between 8 and 10 millions around 1800, the latter estimate being the more realistic figure. The view that there was exceptionally rapid population growth in Java in the nineteenth century is to an important degree the product of a Europe-centred approach to the history of Java.

From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: An Environmental History since 1492

“…So he does not wonder why the 1862 manual on sugarcane cultivation, advocating intensive methods, by Alvaro Reynoso, whom he often cites, was translated into Dutch and applied in Java, but ‘forgotten’ in Cuba, as the preface to a 1925 reprint points out. There is an obvious reason: Cuba, with a total area of 110,000 km 2 , had 553,000 inhabitants in 1817 and 1,573,000 in 1899 (Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas 2008b, Table 3.1), whereas Java, with 132,000 km 2 , had 4.5 million in 1815 and almost 28.5 million by 1900 (Peper 1970).…”