262 



EARTH, AREA AND POPULATION OF THE. 



Europe and Asia and most of the countries of 

 Asia and Africa, Dr. Supan has instituted special 

 investigations. The varying estimates of the 

 population of China and of the less known parts 

 of Africa, which are little better than guesses, 

 are the chief cause of the divergence between the 

 computations of the world's population made by 

 different authorities. The vagueness of the data 

 relating to those and other regions makes it im- 

 possible to determine the^total for the whole 

 world within 50,000,000 or possibly 100.000,000. 

 Levasseur, who in 1886 reckoned the earth's in- 

 habitants at 3,000,000 more than Wagner and 

 Supan in 1891, took higher estimates both for 

 China and for Africa. Mr. Ravenstein, in his essay 

 on " Lands of the Globe still available for Euro- 

 pean Settlement," printed a short time before 

 Wagner and Supan published their results, ac- 

 cepted a lower estimate of the population of 

 Africa than theirs by 30,000,000, and made the 

 world's population 12,000,000 less than their 

 total. The apparent growth of the world's pop- 

 ulation between 1866, when Dr. Behm made his 

 first computation, and 1880, when the sixth edi- 

 tion of the " BevClkerung der Erde " was issued, 

 was 106,000,000. This was due rather to more 

 accurate information, which led the editor to 

 take higher estimates of the population of many 

 countries. Two years later, while they reduced 

 the estimate for China by 55,000,000, they added 

 33,000,000 to the figures for the rest of the 

 world. Deducting the excess credited to China 

 in 1880, the population of the earth, according 

 to the tables of Behm and Wagner, was 1,401,- 

 000,000 in that year. In 1891 the estimate of 

 350,000,000 for Cfyina proper is retained, though 

 that of Sir Richard Temple is about 68,000,000 

 less. The estimate for the continent of Africa 

 has been reduced by 38,000,000, and 15,000,000 

 have been deducted from the total for Asia. 

 Deductions have been made also from the former 

 estimates for Arabia and some other regions. 

 On the other hand, explorations have afforded 

 data for estimating the population of countries 

 that were left out in former calculations, or for 

 increasing the former estimates, and natural 

 growth has made the figures higher in countries 

 that have precise statistics. The apparent in- 

 crease since 1880, taking the subsequently cor- 

 rected figures for China, has been 79,000,000. 

 The estimate for 1891 is 56,000,000 higher than 

 the one arrived at in 1882. There are still re- 

 gions of wide extent which Wagner and Supan 

 leave out of their calculations, because they have 

 no data for an approximate estimate of the pop- 

 ulation. Such are the Niger Protectorate of 

 Great Britain and the British East Africa Com- 

 pany's sphere. Houtum-Schindler's estimate of 

 7,653,000 for Persia, which was accepted by Wag- 

 ner in 1882 and is still retained, is more than a 

 million less than competent authorities have 

 more recently credited that country with now 

 having. Corea is credited with 10.500,000 by 

 Wagner and Supan, who have reduced the pop- 

 ulation of Arabia to 3,472,000, less than a third 

 of Rashid Bey's estimate of 10,725,000 made in- 

 1875. Africa was believed a few years ago to have 

 at least 220,000,000 inhabitants. This estimate 

 has been reduced by Supan to 164,000,000, and 

 Ravenstein cuts it down to 134,000,000. In 1880 

 there were data based on actual enumerations 



and censuses for 626,000,000 out of the total of 

 1,401,000,000, or 44 per cent, of the estimated 

 population of the world. Since then exact enu- 

 merations have been substituted for vague esti- 

 mates in regard to 99,000,000, making 830,000,- 

 000 out of 1,480,000,000, or between 56 and 57 

 per cent, of the population of the earth, that 

 can be calculated by means of precise data, 

 although this includes the 103,000,000 of the 

 Russian Empire, where a general census in the 

 modern sense has only been taken in one or two 

 provinces. 



The area assigned to continents by various 

 geographers differs not only on account of differ- 

 ences in the measurements, but because authors 

 differ with regard to boundaries. Dr. Wagner, 

 in giving the area of Europe, excludes the Ca- 

 naries, Madeira, the Azores, and the Marmora 

 Islands, as well as the polar and Atlantic islands 

 and Iceland ; that given for Asia is without the 

 Arctic islands, and that of Africa does not in- 

 clude Madagascar and other islands, but in the 

 area given for Australia is counted that of Tas- 

 mania. The area assigned to America does not 

 include the polar regions. The area of Europe 

 as given by Dr. Wagner varies only a few hun- 

 dred square miles, within the same limits, from 

 the results reached by Strelbitsky, who has spent 

 years in measurements and calculations. The 

 area of Europe in the narrowest natural limits, 

 making the eastern boundary follow the crest 

 of the Urals, the Manytch river, and the north- 

 ern slope of the Caucasus, would be 3,570,030 

 square miles. Drawing the line along the Ural 

 crest, the Ural river, and the crest of the Cau- 

 casus, the area is 3,790,504 square miles. This 

 is the boundary accepted by Strelbitsky, who 

 includes, moreover, Iceland and Nova Zem- 

 bla, making the total 3,866,605 square miles. 

 New calculations for the area of Asia have been 

 made for Wagner and Supan's work by B. Trog- 

 nitz, who makes it 167,570 square miles less than 

 the previously accepted estimate. The results of 

 Wagner and Supan's calciilations of the area 

 and population of the grand divisions of the 

 earth's surface are as follow : 



According to these estimates, the density of 

 population, ranging from 16 to the square mile 

 in Norway and Finland up to 365 in Holland, 

 480 in England, and 530 in Belgium, averages 

 94 to the square mile for the whole of Europe. 

 In Asia the mean density is 47 to the square 

 mile, in Africa it is 14, in the two Americas, 

 not including the almost uninhabited Arctic 

 regions, there is an average of 8 persons to 

 each square mile, and the islands of both 

 oceans have an average of 10, while the isl- 

 and continent of Australia averages scarcely 

 more than 1 inhabitant to everv souare mile of 

 surface. 



