AHC: European population over 1.5 billion.

How can we get the European continent* to have a population of over 1.5 billion in present day?



*Current modern geographical definitions of Europe, borders of Ural Mountains, the Bosphorus and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Preferably with a POD not before 1 AD.
 
Well it would be a tight density in some countries, if you mean it as just double the people per Country?
 
No world wars, communism or instable regimes(or I guess liberalism, tied to the next point), lack of forms of birth control and abortion, high religiosity(in the form of a religion that values birth rates).

The bigger change in population would be in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the smallest change would be in the UK or Benelux.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Europe has around 800 Million people OTL. So you need to double for this ATL. Let's see. More developed Russia and Eastern Europe could help? No World Wars in OTL intensity could also help.
 
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The population of Europe as of 2019 is about 700 million, so we're talking about a 200% increase here. Europe would definitely require a more politically stable, economically prosperous and technologically advanced state to reach these figures. A good PoD is the Romans or the Carolingians (although the latter far worse than the former) - if any of these can unite the majority of productive agricultural land in europe (mainly france, northern italy and central/eastern Europe) and make agricultural innovations faster than OTL, European populations will explode - no wars to sap it away, economic prosperity and plenty of land to live off of. However, some problems arise with this method:

Plagues will be even more devastating to a denser europe. if the hyper-roman/carolingian empire develops some measures of hygene and proper cleaning than this might be mitigated, but larger plagues like the black plague might absolutely wreck the population.

Colonialism; europeans discovering the americas (it might be africans ITTL, but european are just as likely to discover it themselves) will give this hyper-europe a place to dump a lot of its 'surplus' population. this probably means that the americas also have a higher population ITTL, but it might make europe an ATL italy - a large chunk of it leaves for the new world, leaving the old world somewhat depopulated. However, the columbian exchange probably negates this as it will further improve population growth.

Overall, this europe will probably somewhat similar to china - a large, cohesive state with a massive population and shared language/s (probably latin if the romans are responsible for this PoD). I'm not knowledgeable enough in sociology so I can't say anything about the development of a monolithic europe, but it's probably nothing like the continent we know.
 
The population of Europe as of 2019 is about 700 million, so we're talking about a 200% increase here. Europe would definitely require a more politically stable, economically prosperous and technologically advanced state to reach these figures. A good PoD is the Romans or the Carolingians (although the latter far worse than the former) - if any of these can unite the majority of productive agricultural land in europe (mainly france, northern italy and central/eastern Europe) and make agricultural innovations faster than OTL, European populations will explode - no wars to sap it away, economic prosperity and plenty of land to live off of. However, some problems arise with this method:

Plagues will be even more devastating to a denser europe. if the hyper-roman/carolingian empire develops some measures of hygene and proper cleaning than this might be mitigated, but larger plagues like the black plague might absolutely wreck the population.

Colonialism; europeans discovering the americas (it might be africans ITTL, but european are just as likely to discover it themselves) will give this hyper-europe a place to dump a lot of its 'surplus' population. this probably means that the americas also have a higher population ITTL, but it might make europe an ATL italy - a large chunk of it leaves for the new world, leaving the old world somewhat depopulated. However, the columbian exchange probably negates this as it will further improve population growth.

Overall, this europe will probably somewhat similar to china - a large, cohesive state with a massive population and shared language/s (probably latin if the romans are responsible for this PoD). I'm not knowledgeable enough in sociology so I can't say anything about the development of a monolithic europe, but it's probably nothing like the continent we know.
You don't need some kind of antiquity POD, I mean just look at the population growth of places like the Indian Subcontinent or South-East Asia, they grew so much, both in the 20th and prior, without needing to be wanked for a millennia.

Especially considering the plagues you brought up, what's the point of having a Pod so far back when the plagues would mitigate any growth? IMO the focus should be on the areas which saw unfulfilled demographic potential up to late like the Balkans or Eastern Europe, rather than trying to push Western Europe even more.
 
You don't need some kind of antiquity POD, I mean just look at the population growth of places like the Indian Subcontinent or South-East Asia, they grew so much, both in the 20th and prior, without needing to be wanked for a millennia.

They are not really a good idea to wish for here.
I'm no expert but i am not so sure that this quick population growth that some Countries have had in the last 60 years, is something that we would like to wish for.
While i am sure that these are nice Countries to live in for most people, a lot of them have problems with how to create a fast enough expanding infrastructure.
At least that is something that i had read about some places.
 
They are not really a good idea to wish for here.
I'm no expert but i am not so sure that this quick population growth that some Countries have had in the last 60 years, is something that we would like to wish for.
While i am sure that these are nice Countries to live in for most people, a lot of them have problems with how to create a fast enough expanding infrastructure.
At least that is something that i had read about some places.
Well the objective is too have a large population, anything else is kinda irrelevant.
 
Eastern Europe, including european Russia, could have somehow been the home of a lot more people than today. I know there are several reasons as to why it is sparsely populated in comparison with the west, but no mass death from wars and starvation, aside from political stability and freedom, could result in higher density levels accross the entire region. Higher fertility and lower emmigration rates would also be a bonus ITTL.
 
There would be a lot more people in Europe if so many had not moved to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa...
 
There would be a lot more people in Europe if so many had not moved to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa...
Would there really be that many more? I mean compare Germany, Italy to France, France did not have much emigration and yet ended with the shorter stick of the demographic growth compared to Germany and Italy, I think the primary factor will always be fertility rates and mortality rates, not net migration rates.

Plus emigration is kinda of a given if we push demographic growth that much.
 
Would there really be that many more? I mean compare Germany, Italy to France, France did not have much emigration and yet ended with the shorter stick of the demographic growth compared to Germany and Italy, I think the primary factor will always be fertility rates and mortality rates, not net migration rates.

Plus emigration is kinda of a given if we push demographic growth that much.

There could have been more. Of course the standard of living might also be lower as a result.

If Europeans did not conquer lands overseas, there might still be some emigration, but it would be much lower. For example, OTL there are about 50 million overseas Chinese and 30 million overseas Indians, compared to something like 400 million people of European descent outside Europe.
 

Vuu

Banned
Easy, just buff Eastern Europe to the same tier as the western part (not up to carrying capacity, but y'know, pretty close to).

Bam. Ukraine has 300 million people. European Russia probably the same. Those two alone send it over a billion. Don't have the numbers for others, and if I had the methodology that got them, I'd do the same carrying capacity analysis of every country. Then, the second one is Fennoscandia. Many more people can fit in when you chop down them woods and turn them to farmland (bonus: post glacial rebound! The area secretly gets bigger constantly!). At last, a massive buff in the Balkans and the Pannonian basin. The Balkans I can't see supporting more than 30 million, maybe even less - way too mountainous.

There is a big downside to this, though - Europe might get stuck in an equilibrium trap (this fate awaits the world anyway, you will soon see an absolutely insane rise of birth rates all over Europe, the world will hit carrying capacity, and then boom, Malthusian industrialism until in about 1000 years development skyrockets into territory we can only dream about, bonus: the world will truly be equalized at that point)
 
France only went from 30 million to 40 million while being a net recipient of migration from 1800-1945. A five fold increase in population during that time wouldn’t be crazy. A 50% increase from 1945-2019 would put them at 225 million and add 155 million to Europe.

Germany has barely had any natural growth from 1914-2019. Absent the World Wars and terrible fertility post war they probably can add 50million extra.

The Soviet Union came close to nine digit deaths from Wars, famines, and murder. They also had forced urbanization, forced secularism, and allowed abortion and birth control. Much of the Eastern block had similar trends where the Warsaw Pact was basically only as rich as Latin America but had fertility on par with Western Europe. No Soviet Union might do this alone.

The World Wars, Holocaust, and Spanish flu killed around 100,000,000 Europeans.

Israel sets precedent for modern countries maintaining high fertility and if a few big European countries did the same that could put them at a billion collectively.

Europe could also remain poor and largely illiterate until much later while Asia or the America’s industrialize, and Europe goes through a much longer demographic transition.
 
How can we get the European continent* to have a population of over 1.5 billion in present day?



*Current modern geographical definitions of Europe, borders of Ural Mountains, the Bosphorus and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Preferably with a POD not before 1 AD.
Only Europe itself or European people internationally?
 
You don't need some kind of antiquity POD, I mean just look at the population growth of places like the Indian Subcontinent or South-East Asia, they grew so much, both in the 20th and prior, without needing to be wanked for a millennia.

That's mainly because of industrialization, which Europe's already gone through.
 
Spain always stands out as a low density region in Europe. Any chance of getting them up to similar pop density to at least NW France, or are they just too limited in agricultural possibilities for that to happen?
 
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