Countries which could have realistically been much more populous today?

Australia and NZ could both easily have populations double or even triple what they are today given the right PoDs. A quick jiggling of numbers in a "no world wars" scenario that just extrapolates the non-occurrence of the demographic and economic losses would suggest a population of roughly 35 million for Australia, though that ignores butterflies. The main issue is a lack of immigration given structural and political barriers that are hard to overcome for internal reasons but quite possible with the right external developments. An easy one is just have something nasty happen to Britain that encourages enormous numbers of Brits to emigrate, easily could have half a million more migrants to the Antipodes or more.

A combination of factors could work too, say no/greatly delayed WW1 with the massive Antipodean casualties/missed migration opportunities are butterflied. No WW1 means an Antipodean population of probably 7-ish million by 1920, just extrapolating the early 1910's growth trends. It's important to remember how damaging the collapse in birth rates and immigration was during the war, not just casualties alone. Combine this with a later great war that ends with Britain seriously damaged and there's a great incentive to migrant down under, in particular that during the first half of the 20th century Australia was approaching the critical mass of population to undergo some proper industrialisation, which in turn creates its own growth incentives. One of the curious features of the 1900's Australian immigration features was a massive focus on agricultural workers from an exclusively Anglo background. Compare this to the 1950's policies which encouraged industrialisation, and which were much more successful. It's really not hard to see a 1950 population of around 11-13 million, which if it then grew at roughly historical rates would be around 30-31 million by 2017. Plenty of other butterflies could be put to use too, like a somewhat early to the White Australia policy driven by industrial interests for a larger workforce during the era that workforce size really mattered i.e. pre-automation. Even this is quite a conservative scenario.

RE "carrying capacity", Australia feeds around 60 million people on average per year, so agriculture is not a bottleneck to growth. Water is slightly harder, but only in so far as that without the political will to implement better policies the water supply is not increased. There are lots of very easy reforms that could be done to increase Australia's water supply, something likely to happen if people don't have enough to live!
 
As far as violent demographic disasters go, there are a few that might have been dulled - or avoided altogether. Paraguay lost around 45% of its population in the War of the Triple Alliance (estimates greatly vary). The population of Sudan was reduced by more than half during the Mahdist war. Serbia lost around 25% of its population during WWI and the Central Powers' occupation; the central regions of Serbia (and Montenegro), which bore the full brunt of the occupation, lost as many as ~35% of the people.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I would have to say Ireland had other policies been taken post '22 (leaving aside of course a different outcome to the famine), a stronger economy would have reduced emigration which would have strengthened the economy and so on (for example with the stronger economy of the last 2 decades and predictions of the 2, the population has grown by over a million and predicted to grow by another million by 2040).
What about having WWI be delayed by a year or two and thus having Irish Home Rule pass in 1914-1915? Would an Ireland which remains a part of Britain--at least for a while--have a better and stronger economy and thus a greater population?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Also, not sure if this counts as "Russia" since it was part of the Russian Empire in 1850, but Ukraine could definitely have a higher population without the Russian Revolution, the Holodomor, and WW2.
Yes; correct! However, wouldn't the same have also been true for some other ex-USSR countries--such as both Belarus and Kazakhstan?
 
Ireland without the potato famine. I believe the whole country (including the North) still hasn't gotten back upto it's pre-famine population.
 

CECBC

Banned
Austria-Hungary without WWI. Japan without WWII and a continued Fascist government wouldn't have the demographic changes so they'd have more people.

Korea is another obvious one without the Korean war and N. Korean famines.
 
India without a division (bonus points if you can come up with a POD that keeps Burma with it too, although that might be a bit much).

Also most European and Asian countries because of WWII. Say the French mobilize when Hitler remilitarizes the Rhine and he spooks and pulls back. The IOTL Nazi annexations are delayed and the German economy runs out of foreign exchange from its mismanagement, corruption, and unsustainable armaments spending and collapses. Germany descends into chaos and France never falls so French Indochina is never seized, meaning FDR doesn't put the embargo on Japan and there is no Pacific War. So WWII is basically butterflied.

That saves tons of people in loads of countries. Poland for example lost 25% of its population during the war, the USSR 15%.
 
With out much of details I say many places in Africa.

This. In World War I, there was a major famine in many parts of Africa in addition to casualties caused by the war. This was due to European armies using forced labour as well as taking food. That's one example. The Congo is of course the eternal example, as it could've had a much higher population (even higher now) if not for the brutality of King Leopold's rule. Now it still wouldn't be a nice place (and still probably one of the worst places in colonial Africa, looking at how rubber extraction worked in the late 19th century) if it had been colonised by someone else, but I think you could easily have cut the number of excess deaths/prevented births in half.

North Africa too. Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have large diasporas, in addition to people killed during the Algerian War of Independence. The population could be much higher.

But I think the big issue is that African (especially sub-Saharan) growth patterns have tended to make up for the people killed in various famines/genocides/whatever. Like take the Biafra War--would Nigeria have "gotten back" the people and population growth lost because of it by 2017? What about by 2030? Same goes with the Rwandan genocide, the Ethiopian famines, the Congo Wars, etc.

Yes; correct! However, wouldn't the same have also been true for some other ex-USSR countries--such as both Belarus and Kazakhstan?

Belarus took the highest losses proportionately by far out of all the Soviet republics in WWII, with just over a quarter of its pre-war population dead. No surprise, considering it was right in the middle of things (plus had a large Jewish population). Kazakhstan's losses weren't particularly terrible by Soviet standards.
 
Many places in Asia without Genghis Khan.

POD is 1850 so Genghis Khan was already dead some centuries. And I think that population development has already compensated that.

But one country might be Paraguay. Without or lesser devastating War of the Triple Alliance population would be markable higher.

Poland without WW2.

China without Japanese occupation and Great Leap.

How would be Afghanistan without wars from 1970's?
 

Pangur

Donor
I would have to say Ireland had other policies been taken post '22 (leaving aside of course a different outcome to the famine), a stronger economy would have reduced emigration which would have strengthened the economy and so on (for example with the stronger economy of the last 2 decades and predictions of the 2, the population has grown by over a million and predicted to grow by another million by 2040).

In terms of post indepence policies I would be more specific and point the bone at post WW2 however the famine is as big a factor. I seem to remember that the population of the Island was roughtly 8 million at the time so thats rather hard to dismiss
 
With a PoD of 1850 or later, which countries--other than Germany and Russia--could have realistically been much more populous today?

Modern-day area of Finland.

Alleviate the damages caused by the famine years of 1866-68, and the butterflies start to fly en masse. Without the famines, the Great Migration years of massive immigration to United States that started immediately afterwards change as well. Combine this change with a different Russian policy towards the matter/and or with a more anti-Finnish attitude from the US immigration legislation, and percentage-wise the population of the region would be substantially higher than otl.
 
Top