l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 
5. VITAL STATISTICS OF THE KHARGA OASIS 
POPULATION IN 1907 
The following data are based mainly on records furnished to the 
writer by the Kharga authorities, 1 and on the last two Egyptian 
censuses. 
In 1897 the total population of the Oasis, according to the Egyptian 
Census of that year, 2 was 7,220. At the beginning of 1907, it was 
8,424, and at the beginning of 1909, near 8,495. 3 The increase for 
the decade to 1907 amounted to 16.7 per cent, but during the last 
four years of the period it was in all probability, due to the absence 
of epidemics and hence lesser mortality, more rapid, being equal 
to 22 per cent per decade. This last is a rate of natural increase 
not equalled in any of the larger territorial groups of whites ; but 
even the rate of 16.7 (or 16.1 per cent), is a very high one, being 
reached among the whites only in some localized areas in Germany 
and one or two other countries. But this rate is almost exactly like 
that of Egypt as a whole, the net increase of population in that 
country from 1897 to 1907 being 16 per cent. 
This relatively rapid augmentation in numbers of the Oasis people 
is due, as will be seen from later tables, on one hand to a large 
birth-rate and on the other to an unexpectedly moderate death-rate, 
in years free from epidemics. 
The distribution of the population according to the four districts 
of the Khar.ga Oasis, and the population per dwelling, was in 1907 
as follows : 
POPULATION OF THE KHARGA OASIS, AT THE BEGINNING 
OF 1907, ACCORDING TO THE DISTRICTS 
TV . Total number of Total number of 
houses inhabitants 
Kharga 1,285 5,322 
Gennah 97 520 
Boulac 195 1,016 
Beris 452 1,566 
Total 2,029 dwellings. 8,424 inhabitants. 
(A little over 4.1 to a dwelling.) 
x The writer is especially indebted in this connection to M. Mohammed 
Cherif, the Maowen of the Oasis. The data were said to be entirely accurate. 
'Recensement general de 1'Egypte, Vol. 2, Le Caire, 1898, pp. 215, 274, etc. 
Ball (1. c., p. 46) and after him Beadnell ("An Egyptian Oasis," etc., p. 61), 
give 7,856. The difference between the number given by the census and that 
of Ball is not explainable, but the census number, judging by the increase of 
the population from 1904 to 1908, is the more correct. 
'The 1907 census of Egypt (4, Cairo, 1909), gives 41 less or 8,383, which 
would correspond to an increase for the decade of 16.1 per cent. As the 
figure given to the writer is substantiated by the detailed data on births and 
deaths, it will be used in preference. The difference, after all, is small. 
