How high can we get the world population?

In the mid 1300's in this timeline there's trade routes between Asia, Africa and North America. This leads to technological exchange and agricultural nations eventually covering Africa and North America. Under these circumstances what is the highest we could get the population of Africa by the 1600's? Is 900 million a bit high?

In North America there is a plague that wipes out 90% of the population soon after contact with Asia in the mid 1300's but following this there are no invasions of their land by cultures outside North America. Aid flows in to the various nations in North America from their trading partners during this time to help rebuild their cultures. How high would the population of North America be able to reach by the 1600's? About 200 million?

For Europe there was no Black Death and the Mongol Invasions are significantly weaker. How high could be plausibly get the population of Europe?
 
Aid? That's a modern concept that didn't exist at this time. Nations didn't give aid unless they expected something very tangible back. Given the time and expense needed to cross from Asia to the Americas, I think that for centuries only pirates, exiles, and very desperate traders will journey there.

As for population in Europe, even without the Black Death, Europe would have been on a Malthusian path. The beginning of the Little Ice Age in Europe severely lowered food production, to the point where there was an instance of King John of England not being able to get bread one night. Without the Black Death there would be more people...but just barely, as more people are born than food can be produced and land cleared for them.
 
For Europe there was no Black Death and the Mongol Invasions are significantly weaker. How high could be plausibly get the population of Europe?
Thing is, the Black Death may have took the place of a subsistance crisis : the european population plateau-ed by the early XIVth, and the food production began to do as well, being vulnerable to climatic and temperature changes with the end of the medieval optimum.

Some minor starvation and food shortags already took places in the first part of the century : the famine that happened in France during Louis X's reign is a textbook exemple, with an harvest reduced by half on average; and it's likely that the wars of the XIVth would have aggravated the situation possibly up to the XVth).

So, at best, I could see a strong demographical decline in Europe, with periods of starvations crisis noticable now and then, possibly less important and more apart from each other. It's hard to say how important the demographical decline would be (altough less important than the plague) but a net loss of 10 to 25% of the population seems a good guesstimate.
 
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As for population in Europe, even without the Black Death, Europe would have been on a Malthusian path.
It was less a malthusian issue, than technical limits being reached in cojunction of climating changes : the medieval world was certainly fuller than in Antiquity, but not that full especially in Eastern Europe.

The beginning of the Little Ice Age in Europe severely lowered food production, to the point where there was an instance of King John of England not being able to get bread one night.
I think you might be confused there : the Little Ice Age began in the XVIth, the end of medieval optimum in the XIVth, and John lived in the XIIIth.
 
It was less a malthusian issue, than technical limits being reached in cojunction of climating changes : the medieval world was certainly fuller than in Antiquity, but not that full especially in Eastern Europe.


I think you might be confused there : the Little Ice Age began in the XVIth, the end of medieval optimum in the XIVth, and John lived in the XIIIth.
Right as usual of course, but I do know there was a climate crunch beginning at the end of the 12th century, right?

As for the first part, isn't that the definition of Malthusian though? Technical limits of food production sustaining population being reached?
 
Right as usual of course, but I do know there was a climate crunch beginning at the end of the 12th century, right?
I would rather say that the period between the XIIth and the early XIVth century was particularily clement for agricultural production. It doesn't mean you didn't have harvest issues and starvation crises but they tended to be short-lived and localized, more or less the contrary to what you had after the 1310's.

For the late XIIth (specifically the late 1190's), you did have some rainy years that damaged the harvests, they remained largely exceptional and not that structurally harmful compared to the early XIVth. The climatic crunch really began in the early XIVth, altough you can see premisses as early as 1270.

As for the first part, isn't that the definition of Malthusian though? Technical limits of food production sustaining population being reached?
Malthusian model, AFAIU, is more about the unchecked demographical growth which would be unable to be fed with a limited and progressive agricultural capacity (which is mostly a wrong assumption, but that's another debate).

What we had in the early XIVth is not a wildely growing population, but populations whom progression slowed down and more or less plateaued. It was still an highly unstable balance, as the XIVth pointed, that was is less technologically unable to produce more* (again, you still had room for more landworking) than technically (and I should have added structurally) so, as the agricultural production became less economically profitable and such less dynamic (the tendency was to land fragmentaion, up to 2/3, than land reclaiming).
Incidentally, it provoked sort of a rural exodus in cities, which became more dependent of agricultural production way beyond the capacities of their own countryside for some (Bruges, Paris, etc.) which in time of crises made the prices sky-rocketing, after decades of price stagnation.

Incidentally, I think I've found your reference for an English king unable to have breat at his table : it's apparently Edward II during the famine of 1315.

*Better seeding methods would probably have helped. The seed loss of medieval agriculture was really important.
 
Ohhh well there it is! I don't know why I though John. Though I suppose they are both the two worst kings from 1200 to 1350 :D That makes sense then, too, because I remember reading about famines starting in 1317, not 1217. Good deal.
 
Good points. So what would the population of Europe stabilize around? Around 200 million?

How about Africa? If Africa is completely covered in agricultural societies by 1400 (widespread development starting in the 1300's) and at that time has medicine on par with North Asia could be get the population to 900 million by 1600?
 
In the mid 1300's in this timeline there's trade routes between Asia, Africa and North America. This leads to technological exchange and agricultural nations eventually covering Africa and North America. Under these circumstances what is the highest we could get the population of Africa by the 1600's? Is 900 million a bit high?

In North America there is a plague that wipes out 90% of the population soon after contact with Asia in the mid 1300's but following this there are no invasions of their land by cultures outside North America. Aid flows in to the various nations in North America from their trading partners during this time to help rebuild their cultures. How high would the population of North America be able to reach by the 1600's? About 200 million?

For Europe there was no Black Death and the Mongol Invasions are significantly weaker. How high could be plausibly get the population of Europe?

It would take a lot more than that to get agricultural nations covering the parts of North America which didn't have them. And all of Africa was already agricultural besides the parts unsuited to it.

With a 1300 POD, your best bet is more early and more intense colonial settlement in Africa (just South Africa) and the Americas to maximise the population there.
 
It should also be noted, that the Mid East is doomed as well to have population decline. Ever since the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire the Iraqi river system and farmland had greatly declined. The flood plains in the north especially were very paltry compared to antiquity, even during the 780s. Abbasid period north Iraq was also known for lack of large populations with sparse villages and mountain refuges for villagers, outlaws and monks. This was a far cry from the vast population network in the long past antiquity that made the area a production line of powerful warriors. This became even worse with the Khawarij rebellion of the 870s, that destroyed vast tracts of remaining farmland, intact from the Sassanid period, as well as massacring entire villages and towns (backbone of society).

Southern Iraq was equally declined since the Sassanid period. However, despite the destruction of Cteshipon during the initial Muslim invasion, then decayed during the Umayyad period, was replaced by Baghdad during the Abbasid period. This was shadowed by the Zanj rebellion which destroyed the countryside of the Sawad (south Iraq) transforming it into desert and swamplands that could be used for their guerrilla tactics or simply due to nature reclaiming these fine tuned areas. As well, the entire economy was ripped from under society in the 880s onward into the Ilkhanate as society in the Sawad was ruled essentially by rebels, criminals and pirates (not to say that there wasn't economic growth under the rule if these types).

To be brief, the state of the Middle East is a slow decline. You must avoid the situations that occurred prior to the Islamic conquest then remedy the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates to even hope to make the Middle East mirror Europe's population growth in the Middle Ages.
 
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Good point, looks like the Middle East will probably decline.

If we make the Mongolian Invasions out of Central Asia an extremely short period (10 years) with little influence in the Middle East afterward how would the balance of power look then? Would there be any causes of the trade routes running from Asia through the Middle East to Europe getting impaired like with Ottoman Empire OTL? Would we ever see some populations in the Middle East reverting to their previous religions after the fall of the empires in the region? In that case what would the population of the region be in the 1600s and how extensive would Western colonization of the area likely be?

On another note what would the population of China, India and Korea likely be without the Mongolian Invasions? About 160 million for China, 100 million for the Indian Subcontinent and less than 1 million for Thailand? How about the rest of Asia?
 
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I forgot to mention, get cassava from South America to Africa. That would definitely increase the population throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and would be useful in the Asian tropics too.

Obviously getting sweet potato and potato spread as far as possible is good. Quinoa and other Andean crops are also great for highland and temperate environments.
 
Now that's a brilliant idea. With that in place and possibly the spread of rice to areas that don't have it, how much larger could we boost the population?

If we get large scale Cassava and Rice agriculture in North America then a plague hits that wipes out 90% of their population in the mid 1300's, what might be the highest plausible figure for their population?
 
It should also be noted, that the Mid East is doomed as well to have population decline. Ever since the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire the Iraqi river system and farmland had greatly declined. The flood plains in the north especially were very paltry compared to antiquity, even during the 780s. Abbasid period north Iraq was also known for lack of large populations with sparse villages and mountain refuges for villagers, outlaws and monks. This was a far cry from the vast population network in the long past antiquity that made the area a production line of powerful warriors. This became even worse with the Khawarij rebellion of the 870s, that destroyed vast tracts of remaining farmland, intact from the Sassanid period, as well as massacring entire villages and towns (backbone of society).

Southern Iraq was equally declined since the Sassanid period. However, despite the destruction of Cteshipon during the initial Muslim invasion, then decayed during the Umayyad period, was replaced by Baghdad during the Abbasid period. This was shadowed by the Zanj rebellion which destroyed the countryside of the Sawad (south Iraq) transforming it into desert and swamplands that could be used for their gorilla tactics or simply due to nature reclaiming these fine tuned areas. As well, the entire economy was ripped from under society in the 880s onward into the Ilkhanate as society in the Sawad was ruled essentially by rebels, criminals and pirates (not to say that there wasn't economic growth under the rule if these types).

To be brief, the state of the Middle East is a slow decline. You must avoid the situations that occurred prior to the Islamic conquest then remedy the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates to even hope to make the Middle East mirror Europe's population growth in the Middle Ages.
So was it a change in climate most culpable for this or was it entirely preventable?
 
Now that's a brilliant idea. With that in place and possibly the spread of rice to areas that don't have it, how much larger could we boost the population?

If we get large scale Cassava and Rice agriculture in North America then a plague hits that wipes out 90% of their population in the mid 1300's, what might be the highest plausible figure for their population?

What is your POD here? If it's the 1200s/1300s, then we don't have a lot of time.

I'm not certain "rice = population explosion" like in China. But the interesting thing is that the rice grown in Carolina historically is from Africa. If we have an Africa-America interchange, then Africa can get Cassava (from Brazil) and hell, why not maize and sweet potato too (from the East Coast). The Americas in return can get rice and millet, and probably other crops. It really isn't plausible to have that happen sadly, but I guess you can somehow get the legendary voyage of that one Malinese king to the West to actually occur. The Mississippi Valley right now is one of the largest rice producing areas in the United States. Giving rice to the Mississippians would be incredible. The thing is, what about the West Coast? It could support a lot more people than it did OTL, but the people weren't really agricultural (since they didn't need to be--there's a proverb in one group there along the lines of "you have to be an idiot to starve in this land"). I've thought the way to get agriculture there is getting slaves with agricultural knowledge to plant crops for their owners, for some reason or another. California, despite the dense pre-Columbian population, seems much more difficult, sadly, but I suppose external pressure from the PNW Indians could cause things to happen.

Speaking of long-distance transfers, getting the potato spread across the Pacific would be great. I'm not sure how plausible it is to have the Polynesians bring it back through the Pacific and eventually to Asia, but if they did, then East Asia could have much increased population growth, and hopefully it gets spread to the Maori too, who will also enjoy a massive population growth (and maybe even colonise Tasmania or Australia).
 
The point of divergence is the Ming'an not defecting to the Mongols during the invasion of Jin. The Mongols suffer a defeat at the Battle of Badger Mouth, losing Muqali and Ogedei Khan. Some of their forces manage to escape from the battle back to their homeland. Jin suffers heavy losses and proceed to reinforce the area with a metal gate and caltrops as they did OTL. They also reinforce Zuyong and Zijing Gap in a similar fashion. After this point the Mongols continue their advance westward but are so weakened that their invasions only last 10 years after which they have little influence outside Central Asia. Both Song and Jin receive intelligence regarding exactly how far the Mongols have conquered and feel highly threatened. A few years after returning from the Middle East and Europe for the electron of a new Khan they are attacked by separately by Jin and Song. This smashes their Golden Horde and the Mongols would never recover.

The Black Death never occurs in this timeline.

The trade routes are initially created from exploration missions from a surviving Song Dynasty and the next dynasty (in this timeline it's called the Chau Dynasty). The exploration is partly due to curiosity of the world but also strongly influenced by a desire to find allies and additional resources to overcome the Jin. The other nations around Asia join in and by the mid 1300's we've got trade routes travelling to Siberia, the Americas and Africa.

I was thinking that maybe private enterprise could heavily influence development from this point. The Americas don't have horses and Asian entrepreneurs could sell these to them. Asia would get cassava, maize and sweet potato from their trade routes and these foods could be sold at locations across along the trade routes. The horses, food or technology could be exchanged for furs or mined resources from the Americas such as gold, silver and iron. Some enterprising communities in North America may start growing rice and millet, selling a portion of their production back to Asia or the surrounding communities for a profit. The wealth, increase in population and horses would give these communities an advantage over the surrounding nations. This practice would rapidly spread with surrounding nations scrambling to replicate the success until it got to the Mississippi Valley region where extremely wealthy agricultural nations would form. Some nations in the Mississippi could choose to use purchased horses to start horse breeding programs.

Africa could have cassava, maize, sweet potato and rice traded to them and would undergo similar development. Since some people in this period knew the world was round and maps would exist roughly depicting each region someone may figure out you can go from the Americas to Africa without going through Asia and trade would start flowing directly from the Americas through the west coast of Africa. Uncertain exactly how long this would take to eventuate through, definitely a few centuries. Curious to hear any suggestions, corrections or estimates for how long this may take.

As for the Middle East could we ever have the Europeans taking control of the region temporarily and then restoring the Iraqi river system and farmland back to it's Neo-Assyrian Empire glory? They could be driven from the Middle East afterward and development could proceed from there.
 
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That would probably take a few centuries to get that way. Not to mention the barrier of spreading agriculture (of non-native plants at that) across the Great Basin and Rockies by culture groups which weren't agricultural to begin with. The 13th century is too late for such a radical transformation of North America. At best you'd have localised success (probably just the Pacific Northwest).

Why would Europeans taking over the Middle East be a good thing? The Crusades weren't very fun for anyone living there. Sending the Europeans to the Americas instead would be more realistic and better for high population growth as in OTL. Just have the conquest of the Inca fail so the diseases are less destructive there.
 
Hmm, you might have a point there. Might take a while to convert hunter gatherers to an agricultural civilization and having agriculture spread from one group of hunter gatherers to those around them. There were some agricultural civilizations on the North American region though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture#/media/File:Mississippian_cultures_HRoe_2010.jpg. Maybe we could have the majority of the trade bypass the hunter gatherers. Have explorers looking for new allies and resources go east and bump into the agricultural cultures such as the Plaquemine, Fort Ancient, Middle Mississippi, South Appalachian and Oneota Cultures. Have the majority of trade flow through these cultures. It would be much easier to introduce an already agricultural society to a new crop.

Once these societies get horses and are able to increase their food production it wouldn't be surprising to see these cultures begin conquering the surrounding hunter gatherer cultures. Once these cultures are conquered they would be forced to convert to an agricultural society. The expanding empires could eventually expand west across the Rocky Mountains until eventually a large part of the eastern coastline is under occupation of the Native American Empires. Given the lack of resistance of Native Americans to outside disease they'd probably be a plague that wipes out 90% of the population and causes these empires to fragment. By this point cultures across the Americas have already been converted to agriculture and would be unlikely to abandon it.

Maybe the plague hits before the empires can reach the Pacific coastline, the empire fragments spend a century recovering then push their collective borders the rest of the way to the west coast. Because the trade routes went straight through the area west of the Rocky Mountains the hunter gatherers there would be affected as well. In a century the numbers in the empire fragments wouldn't be back to levels before the plague but you wouldn't need many soldiers to conquer hunter gatherers.

Thinking of a scenario when Europeans do colonize North America but the situation is less the OTL USA and more like South Africa, with the Native American peoples eventually reestablishing control of their nations.
 
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