AHC: Britain with a larger population than Japan

It really doesn't. Apartment blocks between 3 and 5 storeys are very space efficient housing solutions, if such buildings became the predominant form of housing in a Britain with 130 million people, you could house the entire population on a smaller amount of urban land than the UK uses currently.



Well, generally, countries with abortion restrictions have experienced savage demographic declines. The path of restricting women's rights and access to healthcare seems to slow population growth in the long run, even if the first generation under such a system grows faster.

In general I would say faster growth in the 20th Century could reasonably count on a mix of:

1) A Britain that is able to accommodate Ireland within itself, rather than losing most of the island as per OTL.
2) A more economically interventionist state between 1918 and 1939, meaning the British economy doesn't essentially stagnate between the wars, likely requires the Liberals to hold power for most of this period.
3) A better prepared Britain that is able to defeat Germany faster and with lower costs in WW2, or else WW2 is completely avoided.
4) Britain follows a pro-industry development path post 1945, rather than following OTL's pro-finance development path, which have led to the collapse of British industry and the inflation of a housing bubble that makes starting a family very expensive indeed.
5) A Britain whose political dynamics favour some combination of welcoming immigration or limiting emigration (for example, a tense relationship with the USA that means that a favoured destination for British emigration is no longer welcoming).

So basically, a Britain where the economy was so robust that people could afford to have families earlier and thus tend to have more children, combined with being a beacon for immigrants and a place would-be emigrants want to stay.

I'm not sure all of these things would get Britain above the Japanese population though. Maybe if we cheated a bit and count Dominions in federation with England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland? Indeed, if we just added Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the UK population we'd be there without a need for economic and demographic PoDs.

Well if you move the date forward to say 40 years from now. It can be done by simply not doing anything to up the very low Japanese birth rate and by introducing much more support for mothers in the UK and junking the immigration targets, and instead deliberately trying to attract more people almost as a form of calculated economic warfare. If Britain's population and economy grows whilst other first world populations fall things become quite interesting.
 

Marc

Donor
Keep in mind that Japan is almost geographically twice the size of the UK.
While there are numerous factors involved, available real estate is a major consideration.
 
Well if you move the date forward to say 40 years from now. It can be done by simply not doing anything to up the very low Japanese birth rate and by introducing much more support for mothers in the UK and junking the immigration targets, and instead deliberately trying to attract more people almost as a form of calculated economic warfare. If Britain's population and economy grows whilst other first world populations fall things become quite interesting.

True, but this isn't the right part of the forum for future history, so I went with things that might change the past demographics.

Keep in mind that Japan is almost geographically twice the size of the UK.
While there are numerous factors involved, available real estate is a major consideration.

On the other hand, Japan has less flat land, being very mountainous.

Also, British land use is fairly inefficient (why does it need to be, since things work OK for the OTL population?) so a denser population can quite easily be supported by changing land use patterns.

fasquardon
 
Have Japan not surrender, then have the US blocade until Japan dies surrender. By spring 1946, the population of Japan is about half of what it was a year before.
 

Marc

Donor
On the other hand, Japan has less flat land, being very mountainous.

Also, British land use is fairly inefficient (why does it need to be, since things work OK for the OTL population?) so a denser population can quite easily be supported by changing land use patterns.

fasquardon[/QUOTE]

Quite right in terms of settable land, the Japanese do tend to have quite dense populations when you look in a more granular way at the distribution. However, it does give Japan a considerably larger overall natural resource base; not the least of which is that extended coastline which benefits a society - like the English - that are major users of aquatic resources: fisheries, etc.
 
Quite right in terms of settable land, the Japanese do tend to have quite dense populations when you look in a more granular way at the distribution. However, it does give Japan a considerably larger overall natural resource base; not the least of which is that extended coastline which benefits a society - like the English - that are major users of aquatic resources: fisheries, etc.

I wouldn't agree. Britain is rather well endowed with natural resources. The main reason most aren't exploited these days is it simply isn't cost effective to do so. Japan, of course, also has resources it isn't exploiting, but not so much and even starting to exploit those resources would be even less cost-effective than imports.

And while Britain and its neighbours have done a good job of crashing the fish stocks on Europe's Atlantic coast, if the ecologies of the region are ever allowed to recover they'd be much more productive than the seas around Japan.

fasquardon
 
Arable land is usually also land that could house rows of concrete apartment blocks.

Sadly there's not much information on the British Isles so just add Ireland and Uk together

But only 6% of the UK is urban while 15% of Japan is:

http://www.demographia.com/db-intlualand.htm

If the UK alone brings up their land use to the same level as Japan then the population will be more than able to fit without even being that dsytopian.
 
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