Higher Global Population?

What are some pre-1900 (so no talking about the World Wars) ways to get the global population significantly higher (whether it be through better medical practices, introduction of new crops to the region, higher immigration, incentives for having more children, or whatever is reasonable) than it was IOTL.

Bonus points for detail and if these regions can have more people living there:
  • non-Russian or Austrian Eastern Europe
  • American Midwest and inland West post-1850
  • Pre-British/European New Zealand
 
Have the extensive colonisation of North America start in the 16th century instead of the 17th. Get more Europeans to the Americas in general. A more populous New World is going to equal a more populous in general world.

I think just with different migration patterns, to ignore everything else, you could have at least 150 million more people in the world.
 
Regarding the idea of the Americas being colonized earlier...

The population density of the European Union is ~116 people per square kilometer. If the Americas, as a whole, had that population density, you'd be looking at nearly 5 billion people there, instead of 1 billion. Granted, the EU is composed of the more populous parts of Europe, so lets just slash that number in half. Thats still more than double the current population of the Americas.

I'd say simply exchanging crops and livestock and diseases between hemispheres earlier in history, and consistently, would do the job.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
What are some pre-1900 (so no talking about the World Wars) ways to get the global population significantly higher (whether it be through better medical practices, introduction of new crops to the region, higher immigration, incentives for having more children, or whatever is reasonable) than it was IOTL.

Bonus points for detail and if these regions can have more people living there:
  • non-Russian or Austrian Eastern Europe
  • American Midwest and inland West post-1850
  • Pre-British/European New Zealand
The inland West could perhaps be accomplished by butterflying away the Chinese Exclusion Act; after all, wasn't Idaho's population at one point a whopping 30% Chinese?
 
Improved pediatric and obstracial health care,the child mortality rate in the 1800's was around 30% and the death rate in childbirth for mothers was 8%.Just having women start squatting during delivery could reduce the death rate for mother and child.
 

Glen

Moderator
Avoid the Black Plague, introduce germ theory and sanitation practices and have it start in Eastern Europe. Earlier 'enouragement' of migration by Europeans (maybe Chinese as well) to North America, New Zealand.
 
744: Umayyad Caliphate collapses and is replaced with the Abbasid throne. Abbasids keep their early character and come to an agreement with the Byzantines similar to the Fatimid-Byzantine relations. Pilgrimage to the Middle East becomes common for Christians and the Abbasid take an ambivalent approach to the Byzantines in regards to their Anatolian provinces and vice versa. The Abbasid then succeed in murdering the entire Umayyad family and secure their strict claims to the caliphate and sets up vassal states in the region. This will limit end prematurely any Umayyad restoration attempts in Syria and bring Syria closer to Iraq.

800: Crush the Mu'tazila and their sect by incurring a strict crack down on their operations in Baghdad. This will be at the expense of Islamic learnings in the short run, but will stop the takeover of the Abbasid court and remove the possibility of the Mihna (inquisition). Stopping the Mihna will remove the impetus for the rebellions by the Khawarij as they will lack the support for their wars against the Abbasid in the Ninewah province. This also removes the major reason for the Mamluk capture of power and allows the Abbasid throne to prosecute total war upon the Saffarids and other traitors to the Abbasid throne.

810: Ali bin Muhammad al-Dibaj is killed by a Shi'i mob in Bahrian trying to claim descent from the Shumaytiyyah. His death is compounded with an Abbasid conquest of Armenia and making all the inhabitants Dhimmi. Georgia is then in turn a vassal state. The Armenians due to their conquest are no longer slaves, but dhimmi and on the frontiers. They thus experience slight population growth as opposed to a deep decline due to war. In the same timeframe, the Zabul remains unconquered as does Ghandhara. These areas then become heavily fortified to Islamic invasion or at least slowly receding as opposed to being consumed completely and wholesale. Turkish Mamluks arrive as otl, but Turkish states outside of the Islam, begin to draw nearer to China or across the Pontic steppe following the path of the Huns before them.

900: Due to the changes of the Turkish path both splitting them numerically and politically, the Ghaznavids are butterflied and their conquest and India remains relatively closed to Islamic invasion from the North. The result is India continues to grow larger than otl. Combine this with trade between Islamic states, and population really begins to boom in both Arabia and India. Over time, as well, the Somali states benefit from the trade and develop further. Maqdishu becomes even larger as it accepts suzerainity from the Abbasid and trades more with India.

930: Turkish conquerors arrive in Ukraine and Russia. The subsequent Turkish states form a powerful kingdom in the Ukraine and unite it using Christianity and makes substantial deals with Byzantium. The Turkish state then invades the Baltic and starts the wars upon these peoples earlier and with less casualties than the later wars in the 1200s. Turks arriving in the far east, form states on the west of the steppe and wage wars incessantly with other groups such as the Mongol and Manchu. This limits the power of Nomadic hordes in terms of pouring deep into China. Meanwhile, China continues to develop well, and extends trade into south Asia.

1000: Integrate the ideas from the Mayan gaining trade access into the tl.

This si a major start. Without the Zanj revolt and the massive disruption of Iraq which brought it past the point of saving, the population would be far, far larger there. Then what you need to do is avoid thirty years wars and other things. That combined with a wanked Abbasid period in terms of stability and economics, larger Hindu/Indian population, no Mongols, no fall of Byzantine power, no Saljuq Empire, etc... you end up with a much larger population of the world by 1500 to then do more work with to then take it into 1900s.
 
Get rid of imperialism-capitalism on the late 1800s, boom, a myriad of genocides and atrocities would be avoided.

Sure.... Because that is the only period that matters. Before 1900 section is not for those who read history with ideological lenses, especially ones that put little effort into a post such as this.
 
Avoid the Black Plague, introduce germ theory and sanitation practices and have it start in Eastern Europe. Earlier 'enouragement' of migration by Europeans (maybe Chinese as well) to North America, New Zealand.

Not having the Black Plague might have significant butterflies with regards to the Scientific and Industrial revolutions, especially if its true that the Black Plague tended to encourage rising wages and agricultural improvements to make up for the loss of the existing labour force. If those major developments are retarded, world population would overall remains much lower.
 
Sure.... Because that is the only period that matters. Before 1900 section is not for those who read history with ideological lenses, especially ones that put little effort into a post such as this.
I was just giving an idea. He asked for pre-1900 possibilities. To say that imperialism caused genocides and atrocities isn't ideological... or at least it isn't false.
 
Regarding the idea of the Americas being colonized earlier...

The population density of the European Union is ~116 people per square kilometer. If the Americas, as a whole, had that population density, you'd be looking at nearly 5 billion people there, instead of 1 billion. Granted, the EU is composed of the more populous parts of Europe, so lets just slash that number in half. Thats still more than double the current population of the Americas.

I'd say simply exchanging crops and livestock and diseases between hemispheres earlier in history, and consistently, would do the job.

Keep in mind though that much of the Americas are desert, tundra, mountains etc. and thus minimally fit if at all for human habitation.
 

Glen

Moderator
Not having the Black Plague might have significant butterflies with regards to the Scientific and Industrial revolutions, especially if its true that the Black Plague tended to encourage rising wages and agricultural improvements to make up for the loss of the existing labour force. If those major developments are retarded, world population would overall remains much lower.
Wages? Not sure what you mean in that context? What agricultural improvements are you talking about here?
 
Wages? Not sure what you mean in that context? What agricultural improvements are you talking about here?

I haven't read too much Late Medieval history, but what I've seen states that wages and conditions for peasants improved after the Black Death due to the decline in the labour force.
 

Deleted member 97083

Wages? Not sure what you mean in that context? What agricultural improvements are you talking about here?
The Black Plague reduced population density in Europe, increasing the ratio of natural resources per person and area of farmland per person. The lower population also increased the price of labor. So wages increased throughout much of Europe.
 

Glen

Moderator
The Black Plague reduced population density in Europe, increasing the ratio of natural resources per person and area of farmland per person. The lower population also increased the price of labor. So wages increased throughout much of Europe.
I guess maybe I'm a bit confused by the use of the term wages as I thought we were still in a feudal system (albeit one hit hard) by the end of the black plague.
 

Deleted member 97083

I guess maybe I'm a bit confused by the use of the term wages as I thought we were still in a feudal systm (albeit one hit hard) by the end of the black plague.
Most medieval peasants didn't own their own farms, so the products of their work went to their lords, who then paid them a fraction of the value of their work as wages. In addition, there were plenty of cities in the Middle Ages, which generally had their own diverse laws. Most of the people who lived in cities were paid wages, excluding those who owned their own "industries".

For merchants and the like, luxury goods became more valuable because the labor to produce them was more expensive, so trade revenues also increased. (This also led to an intensification of production of luxury goods and the clearing of new land).

For peasants who owned their own farms, they had more land than before, so received greater yields. Not necessarily wages but another increase in prosperity.

Feudalism wasn't a strict law, more of a guideline. Really "feudalism" is a retrospective generalization to help understand the many different systems present in the Middle Ages.
 
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