В конце октября 2011 года население планеты exceeded 7 billion. The fact that China is the most populated country in the world is known to everyone, and this is a fact from time immemorial. Over the entire foreseeable history of human civilization, the population of China has always been the most numerous. It is no coincidence that demographic problems are becoming especially large here.
History
In the middle of the XIX century, every third was Chineseman on our planet. The most populated country in the world then recited about 420 million inhabitants, and 1.25 billion people lived around the world, according to some information. The problems of shortage of land suitable for farming, despite the large size of this country, were always relevant for China, but at a time when the majority of the population was engaged in agriculture, they acquired a gigantic scale.
From 1850 in China began a bloodythe war that unleashed the taipins who lived in the southern regions of the country. They rebelled against the Manchu Empire of the Qing, on whose side were the foreign armies - the British and French. In a decade and a half, between 20 and 30 million people died. The most populated country in the world was able to restore its former number only by the start of another war, the First World War.
The emergence of the PRC
The consequences of the war with Japan were for Chinanot as disastrous as the outcome of the Taiping rebellion. Despite the fact that the losses of the Chinese army were eight times greater than that of imperial Japan, the innumerable resources of internal China led to the fact that by the end of the war its population increased to 538 million.
The war against Japan was replaced by civil -the struggle of the People’s Liberation Army of China against the KMT. As a result of the victory of the troops of Mao Zedong, the most populated country in the world continued to exist under a new name - the People's Republic of China.
The toughest demographic policy
At first, new authorities supported education.large families. By 1960, more than 650 million people lived in the PRC. But the extreme economic policy of the Chinese Communist Party led by the “great helmsman” led to a catastrophic situation with the provision of the population with food. From the effects of hunger, according to various sources, from 20 to 40 million people died. But the losses were compensated by a high birth rate, and by the early eighties, the population of the PRC was 969 million inhabitants.
One of the means to combat the shortageMao's agricultural products considered birth control. The CCP has launched another campaign, now under the slogan "One Family - One Child." Under this motto, legislation was enacted providing for a system of harsh punishments for the appearance of a second baby in the family. As a result, population growth rates have declined over the past decades.
Nuances of statistics
Although today only every fifth earthling -a citizen of the PRC, and the most densely populated country in the world is the dwarf state of Monaco, statistics only formally reflect the demographic situation. Number of Chinese per km2 - 648 people, which is three times less than the numbercitizens of Monaco on the same area, but, given the difference in the size of these two states, we can say that this demographic indicator in China is one of the highest in the world.
This is due to the extremely uneven distributionresidents. In some regions, especially in large metropolitan areas, the population density is several times higher than in areas where even arable land is absent. Perhaps Bangladesh is indeed the most densely populated agrarian country in the world, but the relevance of the ancient Chinese proverb “Many people, but little land” is only growing.
Prospects
The policy of restricting population growth inChina is bearing fruit, however, giving rise to other problems - the dramatic aging of the population and the growing disproportion between the number of men and women. Although citizens have found different ways to circumvent the prohibition of their second child — for example, women give birth in other countries where children acquire other citizenship — the PRC government is ready to revise a strict demographic policy, especially in rural areas.
According to experts, by 2050 it will bereality is another answer to the question of which is the most populated country in the world. Their calculations show that another giant from a developing country, India, may well take the place of China. Even today, the gap between the two states is not so great. According to statistics, as of the beginning of 2016, 1,374,440,000 people live in China, 1,283,370,000 in India. world and its economic potential, it will be clear the validity of such expectations.
