Population densities of America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand if settled two centuries earlier

The PoD is the Age of Exploration happens more than a century earlier, early colonial attempts have more luck than OTL to help settle populations with more resistance to Old World disease, and the world has technological and economic growth at a similar pace to OTL to prevent earlier demographic transitions.

European settlers (along with surviving natives, slaves, and anyone else who winds up there) have more time to settle the land.

Certain areas, like the Rio De La Plata and Mississippi Basins, or the American West Coast, all had very small populations compared to what they were capable of.

Provided another two centuries of pre industrial fertility before the industrial revolution, what would the population of some of these places end up like? Could we have parts of the America’s with populations comparable to the Benelux, Eastern China, much of India, or Java?
 
I would imagine, (can not prove) that the initial colony human population would have a hard time of it. Strange new land, new diseases, new nasty plants and animals. Perhaps new climatic conditions. Don't go near the water and that kind of stuff. Also do not go barefooted in mud puddles or standing water.

Also the post regarding required improved ocean going ships is right on.
 
If you get quick enough naval development combined with Constantinople falling a few decades earlier to cause people to want to explore, I think you can move up the age of exploration about 50 years, maybe a bit more. Prince Henry the Navigator was a pretty big and influential figure, and you could probably have some other people helping him to create better ocean-going vessels.

So, let's say that the Columbus of this time can get to the new world in the 1440s. You can also speed up colonization a little especially if someone decides to start settling Australia in the 1500s in this timeline) but with the Hundred Years War going on that might be a little tricky. On the other hand, perhaps with the loss in that war England turns its attention to the West instead. I'm not sure how Castile and Aragon develop exploration until they are one country in Spain. So Portugal might get the jump that's painted in our timeline, not because of a Papal ruling but just because Spain is a little less together. Literally. :) if you butterfly away Habsburg control of the Netherlands you might get the Dutch starting to explore more and expanding more because they won't be taking the time to fend-off Hapsburg control.

So, this is going to influence things also. You might get different countries involved in colonizing these places. The French still have the large population, do they take advantage? Is the Valois style of colonization different in the late 15th and early 16th century than it was a couple centuries later? Because if it is the case that the French send a lot of people versus having a minimal number of colonists like in Louisiana, that is going to influence matters if they wind up getting one of the places you mentioned.

So, even pushing the Age of Exploration up 50 years oh, and subsequently allow in colonization to be pushed up a century or more because certain countries aren't busy with other projects, you are definitely going to see some very wide differences as far as the potential population densities.
 
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Earlier European exploration would require a PoD around 1000 to speed up the advances in sailing and navigation for the age of exploration to happen. With a PoD that early butterflies would be rampant and makes it hard to comment. But I disagree with the notion that earlier European contact with the Americas would cause faster settlement or increased population density. I think quite the opposite would occur.

Early European colonizers didn't care for settler colonies. They don't really start appearing until 17th century, and don't become ubiquitous until well into the 18th. The lack of many settlers in Spanish, French, Dutch, etc. colonies was a feature and not a bug. They were there to create wealth to ship back to the metropole, not to create new metropoles. Moving contact earlier only increases this effect. Medieval kings wouldn't want their tax paying subjects moving across the world and out of their grip. Before the Early Modern period European states did not have high enough populations to require emigration outlets. And the earlier back you go, the less rights a peasant will have to move without the consent of their liege lord. You'd likely see (outside of the Andes and Mesoamerica) colonies limited to plantations, trading posts, forts, missionary outposts, and seaports until the 1600s like OTL.

This is good news for the Indigenous, who will have a few extra centuries of limited contact to recover from diseases before the mass migration of Europeans. They would be more successful in resisting colonization here, resulting in less European immigration to the Americas, meaning population densities would be lower.
 
I don't think you need earlier colonization, you need the relevant areas to get settled earlier. The start of New World colonization came in 1492, but how long did it take for the Atlantic seaboard to get permanently colonized in key areas that are more friendly to European settlement(so not Florida)? It took until 1607 for the English to start on the Chesapeake Bay. Buenos Aires was founded in the early 16th century, abandoned, then re-established in 1580. Earlier colonization is feasible, just didn't happen IOTL due to a lack of political interest. You get the idea for South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand though I think Oceania isn't feasible until the mid-16th century, personally.

I think it's feasible to bump up the initial exploration of the Atlantic by a few decades; this could give you ~150 years extra to beat OTL's pace of settlement in those areas outlined by the OP.
 
In 1291 the Genoese Vivaldi brothers set out to find a way to India. Have them succeed, against the odds, to make it to the Jolof and back. With an easier access to gold, traffic to West Africa should pick up, with especially the Iberians being interested and developing their seafaring capability, not just for trade but to gather possible allies against the Marinids. Within decades, Brazil could be found (let's say we go with the classic 'swept away in the storm') and seeaing as we are speaking of the high middle ages rather than the early modern age here, relations between native and foreigner should be less fraught and less economically expoitative, at least early on.

Leaving aside the Black Plague, which may or may not be butterflied, the various Europeans could end up settling the more temperate parts of the New World, while maintaing the kind of trade relations with the inhabitants of the American (sub)tropics they have with the various West African kingdoms. If you add to that the inclusion of smaller parties (such as the Hanse) which can not dominate the New World the way their counterparts did IOTL coupled with the earlier 'discovery' of the Basque/Breton cod fishing banks, you could end up with the Americas being both more peopled and more mixed in heritage.
 
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