AHC: Europe and Middle East have bigger population than China and India

With PODs anytime you want, make present-day Europe and Middle East each has population more than one billion, while present-day China and India each has around 300 - 500 million population.
FYI, population of OTL Europe is around 500 million, while Middle East is 300 - 400 million.

"Europe" in this thread is defined as in the map below, WITHOUT European Russia:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary.svg

While "Middle East" is as the most dark green in map below, so Libya, Algeria, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia are NOT included:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Greater_Middle_East_(orthographic_projection).svg

Both "China" and "India" are defined roughly as the area of modern-day nations of PRC (plus Taiwan) and India (plus Ceylon).
 
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So...no takers whatsoever? Is this too...difficult?
Are China and India "destined" to have a freakishly big populations?
 
China:
Have the country industrialize early on; when 20th century farming advances become available, the birth rate is kept down and China stays with only around 600 million.

India:
Pretty much the same deal as China, although this is harder to do. Its population growth is a bit more recent, however, so it might not be so hard after all. OTL India's population fell between 1900-1920, though I'm not altogether sure why; if this were replicated it might have the results you need.

Europe:
I think to be larger Europe needs fewer wars and less wealth. Perhaps if colonialism never caught on (though I'm not sure how that could be achieved), they would take a bit longer to get to the stage where having more children is economically disadvantageous.

Middle East:
I have no idea how you would get this much higher before the others.
 
China, Plague, Civil war and Famine one after another

India, something similar to China

Europe, slower industrial revolution, earlier green revolution, more religion

Middle East, no Mongols here, earlier green revolution will help as well
 
China

I think just delay the introduction or the wide spread eating of New World crops until they industrialize, like in Japan or Korea.
 
Europe needs higher agricultural productivity earlier. It was a nice enough place to live, but the grain yields sucked. I don't quite see how you can introduce new world crops to Europe and the Mideast, but not to China and India, but if you can, that could account for a big chunk of your challenge. If you also somehow remove wet rice cultivation from the picture, that could do it.
 
Europe:
I think to be larger Europe needs fewer wars and less wealth. Perhaps if colonialism never caught on (though I'm not sure how that could be achieved), they would take a bit longer to get to the stage where having more children is economically disadvantageous..

Historically this wasn't an issue- in fact Europe's lower historical populations were because it was a lot poorer. And in a time when wealth was linked pretty directly to agricultural capacity, this was a pretty clear reason for lower populations. It's not like a 12th C European peasant was specifically trying to have fewer children than a 12th C Indian peasant, it's that India had agricultural carrying capacity large enough for more to survive.
 
Reverse Black Death, perhaps?

You mean one limited to China and India? Unlikely to work, unless you posit some really nightmarish death tolls. OTL's epidemic was just as bad in China, India and Egypt as it was in Italy and England, and the population recovered within a few centuries.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Change river route

China population is heavily on Yellow River. if on Ancient times massive earthquakes cause yellow river on Lanzhou to take southern route and joined Wei River without moving through Loess Plateau. large fertile land on Shanxi and Shaanxi will be lost.

for India have several of Punjab five river become tributary of Ganges and Jamuna, without fertile plain on Punjab and Sindh population would be greatly reduced.

Ganges and YangTze is more difficult since it have too many tributaries and its route have too many rainy areas.

even with this change China and India will still likely have many more pop
 
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