660 INQUIRY INTO THE POPULATION OF CHINA. 



seem that the "household" comprised from 4.8 to 5.2 individuals; 

 ill others, the T'aiig, for example, it rose to 5.8. During others, as the 

 Sung, it Avas only a fraction over 2 persons, according to Sacharoff," 

 though Biot ^' contends that in this })eriod it was a fraction more than 

 5 persons, as in the preceding period of the T'ang. Under the Yuan 

 dynasty, according to Amiot, the " household " comprised 5 persons, 

 and in the succeeding Ming dynasty it seems to have varied from 

 about 5 to over 0.0. Even during the present dynasty we are in grave 

 doubt as to the numeric value of the term hu ("household," " fam- 

 ily "). Father Amiot and other foreign writers have thought it rep- 

 resented 5 persons, de Guignes ^ says 2 to 3, but in the opinion of 

 E. H. Parker it averaged G persons.'^ In the census of 1842, which 

 gave the number of households and of individuals, the former aver- 

 aged 2.3 persons to the family; and in a census of the city of Peking 

 for 1840 it averaged 3.1. I am disposed to accept 4 as a fair figure 

 for enumerations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.*' 



During the Han dynasty, from A. D. 1 to 150, we have 10 enumer- 

 ations.^ The first, taken in A. D. 1, gave 12,233,002 "households" and 

 59,594,978 "individuals." The last, taken in 150, gave 10,070,900 

 " households " and only 50,000), 850 " individuals." The territory over 

 which these censuses extended did not vary appreciably during the 

 whole of this period of one hundred and fifty-five years; it was sub- 

 stantially the same as at the present day. The population during this 

 century and a half was nearly stationary. 



In A. D. 000, when China was again united under one rule, what 

 has been held by western writers to be a very careful census was 

 taken. It again gave the population of the Empire at about 55,- 

 500,000." 



During the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, although a consid- 

 erable number of enumerations of the people are recorded, they are 

 so confused that it is impossible to fix with more than the roughest 

 approximation the population at that time of China proper, Avhicli 



« Hist. Uehersiclit der BevJHkei-ungs-VerliaUnisse China's, p. 157. 



^ Journal Asiatique, ]8.'}G, t. i. 



'■ Voyage a Peking, in, 09. 



'f See infra. \^\^. C>().3-604. In .lapan the average number of persons by liousi'- 

 bold, wliicli often includes several families, was 5.55 at the close of 1898. 



'' It is true that in tlie case of the prefecture of Wen-ehou, in Che-kiang, it 

 was found in ISSl Ilia I tlie average number of persons [ler home was aI)out 5.14 

 (see infra, p. .".Ut. and in the case of Ch'ung-k'ing in Ssn-eh'uau in 1877 a 

 detailed census of the city gave about I.". i)i'rsons to a family (E. C. Baber. 

 Journ. of Kxploi-. in wcsl. Cliina. p. :.'.->). 



/ Ma Tuan-lin, Wen-hsien t'ung-k'.io. lik. lU. 



See Biot, op. cit., pp. 451-452. 



