﻿rockhill] the population of china 305 



then covered about the same area as at present. The census which 

 appears to have been the mosl carefully made was that of the year 

 756. It gave 8,814,708 families and 52,919,309 individuals for the 

 free population, exclusive of infants and very old people; it included 

 the kingdom of Korea. The total population in a. d. 7^' may there- 

 tori' have been about 61,000,000. Biot, using the censuses referred 

 to in this paragraph, has calculated the average yearly increase oi 

 the population of China proper between a. d. 650 and 755, and found 

 it to have been about O.O063 per cent. 



During the XI century, when the empire was again united under 

 the rule of the Sung, we have ten enumerations of the population, 

 that of the year 1080 showing evidence of having been the most 

 carefully taken. It gives the number of households of freeholders 

 (chit) and tenants (k'o) as 14,852.686, or 33.303.889 individuals. 

 No matter how numerous we allow the exempted and unenumerated 

 classes to have been, it is not conceivable that they could have more 

 than doubled this number ; so we may, 1 think, safely assume that at 

 the end of the XI century the population of China proper was not 

 much more than 60,000,000, the same as in the middle of the \ III 

 century. 



Biot has calculated the average yearly increase during the Sung 

 dynasty (a. d. 976 to 1102) and found that from 976 to 1021 it was 

 about 0.02 per cent., and from 1021 to 1102 only 0.0103 per cent, or 

 0.015 per cent, during these 125 years. 



In 1290, at the end of the Mongol conquest of China by Kublai 

 Khan, a census of China proper gave 13,196,206 households of 58,- 

 834,711 individuals. Admitting that vast numbers of Chinese had 

 been reduced to slavery by the Mongols and countless thousands 

 had been killed, the population at the end of the XIII century can 

 hardly have been much in excess of 75,000,000. 



During the Ming dynasty there were no fewer than twenty-one 

 censuses between 1381 and 1578. The highest figure of the re- 

 corded population during this period was 66,598,337 individuals in 

 1403. and the lowest 46.802.005 in 1506. The last census, that of 

 1578, taken at a time when the country was extremely prosperous 

 and enjoying general peace, gave the population as 63,599,541 souls. 



While agreeing with SacharofT that the various censuses of this 

 period are not of a trustworthy character, I believe they may be 

 considered sufficiently accurate to show that during the XV and 

 XYI centuries the population of China increased very slowly, cer- 

 tainly not more rapidly than during previous periods of its history. 



The following returns of the detailed censuses of 1393. 1491, and 



