INQUIRY TNTO TIIK POPUT.ATION OF TTTTNA. ()()1 



lluMi coverod iihoiit (he Siiiuc area as at present. The census Avhich 

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

 Tr)('). It gave 8,814,708 families and r)i>,<.)ll),:'.01) individuals for the 

 free population, exclusive of infants and v(M-y old i)eople; it included 

 the kino-dom of Koi-ea. The total poi)ulation in A. D. TaC) may tliei'c^- 

 fore liave been al)oiit ()i,()(K),()OU. Biot, using the censuses i-efen-ed 

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

 the |)opnlation of Chian proju'r between A. D. H^O and T.");"). and found 

 it to ha\e been about O-OOC*)) })er cent. 



During tlu' eleveiuh -'entury. when the Empire was again u!iite(l 

 under the rule of the Sung, we have ten enumerations of the popula- 

 tion, that of the year lOSO showing evidence of having been the most 

 carefully taken. It gives the number of households of freeholders 

 (chu) and tenants (k\)) as 14,8r)>2,()8(), or ;^;^,;50;',,889 individuals. No 

 uuitter how numerous we jillow the exempted and uneinnnerated classes 

 to ha\(' l)een, it is not conceivable that they could have more than 

 doubled this luunber; so we nuiy, 1 think, safely assmne that at the 

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

 much more than 00,000,000, the same as in the middle of the eighth 

 century. 



Biot has calculated the average yearly increase during the Sung 

 dynasty (A. D. 97() to 1102) and found that from 976 to 1021 it was 

 ni)oiit 0.0-2 ]X'r cent, an.d from 1021 to 1102 only 0.0103 per cent, or 

 0.015 per cent during these one hundred and twenty-five years. 



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

 Khan, a census of China proper gave 18,19r),20r) 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 po})ulation at the end of the thirteenth century can 

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



During the Ming dynasty there were no fewer than 21 censuses 

 between 13S1 and 1578. The highest figure of the recorded popula- 

 tion during this period was 66,598,337 individuals in 1403, and the 

 lowest 40,802,005 in 1506. The last census, that of 1578, taken at a 

 time when the country was extremely prosi)erous and enjoying gen- 

 eral [)eace, gave the poi'ulaticn as 03,595),541 souls. 



While agreeing with Sacharoff that the various censuses of this 

 period are not of a trustworthy character, T believe they nuiy be 

 considered sufficiently accurate to show that during the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries the population of China increased very slowly, 

 certainly not more rapidly than during previous pei'iods of its 

 historv. 



