The population statistics of China, A.D. 2–1953

Durand, John D.

doi:10.1080/00324728.1960.10405043

Cited by 25 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…However, except China, the historical population records of many countries do not fit this requirement (Ho 1959;Durand 1960;Zhao and Xie 1988;Jiang 1993). Moreover, for a long period of time, China was a predominantly agricultural society characterized by a high degree of 'endogenity' (Turchin 2005;Turchin and Korotayev 2007) In this sense, early China is conceptually similar to the bacteria in a petri dish.…”

Section: Study Area and Study Periodmentioning

confidence: 93%

Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium

2007

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The climate-population relationship has long been conceived. Although the topic has been repeatedly investigated, most of the related works are Eurocentric or qualitative. Consequently, the relationship between climate and population remains ambiguous. In this study, fine-grained temperature reconstructions and historical population data sets have been employed to statistically test a hypothesized relationship between temperature change and population growth (i.e., cooling associated with below average population growth) in China over the past millennium. The important results were: (1) Long-term temperature change significantly determined the population growth dynamics of China. However, spatial variation existed, whilst population growth in Central China was shown to be responsive to both long-and short-term temperature changes; in marginal areas, population growth was only sensitive to short-term temperature fluctuations. (2) Temporally, the temperature-population relationship was obscured in some periods, which was attributable to the factors of drought and social buffers. In summary, a temperature-population relationship was mediated by geographic factors, the aridity threshold, and social factors. Given the upcoming threat posed by climate change to human societies, this study seeks to improve our knowledge and understanding of the climate-society relationship.

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Section: Study Area and Study Periodmentioning

confidence: 93%

Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium

2007

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“…When we carefully examine China's history before the 19th century, it can be seen that the total human population grew slowly but with periodic fluctuations caused by social shocks such as wars (Durand, 1960). In a similar way, the population of TRB did not increase significantly before the late 18th century.…”

Section: Human History and The Abandonment Of Settlementsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Socio-hydrologic perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and water in the Tarim River basin, Western China: the Taiji–Tire model

Liu

Tian

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

120

107

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Abstract. This paper presents a historical socio-hydrological analysis of the Tarim River basin (TRB), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in Western China, from the time of the opening of the Silk Road to the present. The analysis is aimed at exploring the historical co-evolution of coupled human-water systems and at identifying common patterns or organizing principles underpinning socio-hydrological systems (SHS). As a self-organized entity, the evolution of the human-water system in the Tarim Basin reached stable states for long periods of time, but then was punctuated by sudden shifts due to internal or external disturbances. In this study, we discuss three stable periods (i.e., natural, human exploitation, and degradation and recovery) and the transitions in between during the past 2000 years. During the "natural" stage that existed pre-18th century, with small-scale human society and sound environment, evolution of the SHS was mainly driven by natural environmental changes such as river channel migration and climate change. During the human exploitation stage, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, it experienced rapid population growth, massive land reclamation and fast socio-economic development, and humans became the principal players of system evolution. By the 1970s, the Tarim Basin had evolved into a new regime with a vulnerable eco-hydrological system seemingly populated beyond its carrying capacity, and a human society that began to suffer from serious water shortages, land salinization and desertification. With intensified deterioration of river health and increased recognition of unsustainability of traditional development patterns, human intervention and recovery measures have since been adopted. As a result, the basin has shown a reverse regime shift towards some healing of the environmental damage. Based on our analysis within TRB and a common theory of social development, four general types of SHSs are defined according to their characteristic spatio-temporal variations of historical co-evolution, including primitive agricultural, traditional agricultural, industrial agricultural, and urban SHSs. These co-evolutionary changes have been explained in the paper in terms of the Taiji-Tire model, a refinement of a special concept in Chinese philosophy, relating to the co-evolution of a system because of interactions among its components.

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“…Chandler's data permit a similar exercise to be performed for China, although new estimates for total population will need to be found. Fortunately, there are now several population series for China which, although they vary in detail, show similar trends over the last thousand years (Durand, 1960;Chu and Lee, 1994;Lee and Wang, 1999). Table 2 reports the composite series to be used here as the denominator, together with the estimates of urbanisation for China based on Chandler's ®gures for urban places with populations in excess of 40,000.…”

Section: Urbanization 1000±2000mentioning

confidence: 90%

Urbanisation in Europe and China during the second millennium: a review of urbanism and demography

Woods

2003

International Journal of Population Geography

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Three issues are considered in this paper: the estimation of rates of urbanisation for Europe and China between AD 1000 and 2000; the demographic consequences of urbanisation; and especially the culture of urbanism and the way it can distort the general association between urbanisation and the level of economic development. Europe and East Asia are the principal areas of interest, and the perspective adopted is distinctly long-term. A multidisciplinary approach is also employed, with evidence and arguments drawn from demographic, economic and cultural sources.

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The population statistics of China, A.D. 2–1953

Cited by 25 publications

References 17 publications

Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium

Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium

Socio-hydrologic perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and water in the Tarim River basin, Western China: the Taiji–Tire model

Urbanisation in Europe and China during the second millennium: a review of urbanism and demography

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