Why are countries like India and China so densely populated? What are the circumstances and reasons?
为什么印度和中国这样的国家人口如此密集？是什么背景和原因造成的？
Quora读者的评论：
Jubin John, works at Google
The main reason for Asia's large population is its large area. However, it seems that it is a common perception that Asia is also densely populated. As people have already mentioned, the population densities of Asia (226/sq mile) and Europe (181/sq mile) are pretty close. I believe this view is prevalent more in North America and Europe and hence I will focus on them in the comparison.
Now, this brings us to the question:
"Why do people think that Asia is highly populated?".
For most people, India (1.241 billion) and China(1.344 billion) would come to mind. The high figures quoted give the impression of high density (which true to a certain extent in India but not so much in China). However, the area of these countries is underestimated as the world map(or to be accurate the Mercator map, which is most commonly used) is not to scale.
Just look at the map. Greenland looks huge in comparison to India but the fact is that it has just about two thirds the area. The reason for this is that countries farther away from the equator have been scaled up (stretched horizontally to put it crudely) to make the world map rectangular. This makes places like Antarctica look gigantic. Larger portions of Asia are closer to the equator than Europe and North America leading to the underestimation of its size.
All this is not to say that countries like India do not have a problem of overpopulation. The problems caused by high population are amplified greatly by lack of education and infrastructure.
亚洲人口众多主要是因为幅员辽阔。不过人们普遍也认为亚洲人口非常密集。正如人们之前提到过的，亚洲的人口密度(226/平方英里)和欧洲(181/平方英里)相当接近。我相信这种观点在北美和欧洲更为普遍。
这就引发了一个问题:
“为什么人们认为亚洲人口众多？”
对大多数人来说，会立刻想到印度(人口12.41亿)和中国(人口13.44亿)。这惊人的数据给人留下一种人口密度极高的印象(在一定程度上，印度是这样，但在中国则不然)。然而，这些国家的面积被低估了，因为世界地图(准确地说，最常用的墨卡托地图)并没有按照比例绘制。
我们来看看地图。与印度相比，格陵兰岛看起来很大，但事实是，它的面积只有印度的三分之二。导致这个问题的原因是，距离赤道较远的国家被放大了(粗略地说就是水平拉伸)，把世界地图变成矩形。导致南极洲这样的地方看起来巨大无比。亚洲的大部分地区比欧洲和北美更接近赤道，这导致了该地区的面积被缩小了。
这并不是说印度这样的国家没有人口过剩的问题。由于缺乏教育和基础设施，人口过多造成的问题被放大了很多。
Davide Mirabella
A lot of it is due climate.
China has always had very high population level throughout history. This is partly due to the fact that large parts of its territory allow for multiple harvests a year which in turn provides higher amounts of food per farmer in comparison to agriculture done in more temperate climate zones, i.e. most parts of Europe.
If one person can provide food for a great number of people and if you multiply this effect throughout an entire society you get the amount of food necessary to sustain very large populations. However, China’s historically large population as always been greatly exposed to famine, too.
译文来源：三泰虎 https://www.santaihu.com/47256.html 译者：Joyceliu
这在很大程度上是由于气候原因。
纵观历史，中国人口数量一直很多。这在一定程度上是由于，与气候较为温和的地区，即欧洲大部分地区的农业相比，中国大部分地区一年能收成多次，这为每个农民提供了更多的粮食。
如果一个人可以为很多人提供食物，如果整个社会都放大这种效应，你就能得到养活大量人口所需用的食物。不过，历史上中国庞大的人口规模也经常遭遇饥荒。
Hemant Kumar, Enterpreneur (2015-present)
There are various reasons for India and China being densely populated.
We can not state it as overpopulation but dense population.
The circumstances and reasons are enumerated as :
- Riverine civilisations:
The early human civilisations were usually developed along river banks.
Early civilisations would get all their basic needs from the river to help them develop their settlements. They would get water,fishes, other wild animals for hunting and productive flood plains for cultivation along the rivers.Rivers were also a means of transport and hence conducive for trade between settlements.
In case of both India and China,they both are blessed with great river systems which are snow fed and perennial.
One of the oldest civilisations be it Mohen jo daro or Indus valley started on the river bank of Sindhu river.Sindhu river originates from snow covered peaks of Great Himalayas and hence perennial.
Other great rivers originating from himalayan snow are Ganges , Brahmaputra, and Yangtze and all these rivers are cradles of oldest civilisation and dense human habitations.
印度和中国人口密集的原因有很多。
我们不能说那是人口过剩，而是人口密集。
情况及原因如下：
- 河流文明：
早期人类文明通常是沿着河岸发展的。
早期的文明能从河流获得他们所有的基本需求，帮助他们开发自己的定居点。他们可以得到水，鱼，可以捕猎到其他野生动物，在河流冲积平原上耕种。河流也是一种运输通道，因此有利于定居点之间的贸易。
就印度和中国而言，他们都拥有伟大的河流水系，终年积雪。
最古老的文明之一，无论是摩亨佐达罗还是印度河流域，都起源于印度河。印度河发源于喜马拉雅山脉的雪峰，因此常年有水。
其他发源于喜马拉雅积雪的大河有恒河、雅鲁藏布江和长江，所有这些河流都是最古老文明的摇篮和密集的人类居住地。
Yes there were other riverine civilisations like Mesopotamia and Babylone on the banks of Euphrates and Egyptian civilisation on the banks of Nile rivers. However these rivers were not perennial and some other conditions were not congenial for dense human settlements.
是的，还有其他河流文明，比如美索不达米亚文明和幼发拉底河岸边的巴比伦文明，还有尼罗河岸边的埃及文明。不过，这些河流不是常年存在的，还有一些其他条件也不适合于人类的密集定居。
- Climatic Conditions:
Both India and China are blessed with very congenial climatic conditions.
These places are neither too hot nor too cold, just right enough for a variety of flora and fauna to survive. This is one reason that one finds largest gene pool of life in these places.
Compare these places with places like Russia, Canada, Northern parts of USA, most of Europe, Australia etc and one would find that they are either too cold or too hot for agriculture.
Russia and Canada are very cold and arctic.
USA also has got more of climatic extremes like winter arctic storms,Tornadoes and Hurricane.
Australia is very hot and covered by desert mostly.
- 气候条件：
印度和中国都拥有非常适宜的气候条件。
这些地方既不太热也不太冷，适宜各种动植物生存。这就是为什么人们能在这些地方发现最大的生命基因库。
将这些地方与俄罗斯、加拿大、美国北部、欧洲大部分地区、澳大利亚等地进行比较，你会发现它们要么太冷，要么太热，不适合农业生产。
俄罗斯和加拿大非常寒冷，处在北极圈。
美国的极端气候也更多，如冬季北极风暴、龙卷风和飓风。
澳大利亚很热，大部分地区被沙漠覆盖。
- Arable Land:
Both India and China are consisting of one of the largest arable land mass.
As per UN survey arable land mass of top four countries is as follows:
United States 174.45 million hectares
India 159.65 million hectares
Russia 121.78 million hectares
China 103.40 million hectares
It is note worthy that Russian arable land area is too cold for intensive agriculture, and out of list mentioned above remaining three nations are top population countries.
3.耕地面积:
印度和中国都是世界上可耕地面积最大的国家之一。
根据联合国调查，耕地面积位列全球前四的国家如下:
美国：17445万公顷
印度：15965万公顷
俄罗斯：12178万公顷
中国：10340万公顷
需要注意的是俄罗斯的耕地太冷了，不宜进行集约化农业，而剩下的三个国家都是人口最多的国家。
- History:
India and China have very long history and new settlements have been taking place over a very long period.Both civilisations have been more than 5000 years old.
Nations like USA is very young and human settlements started very late in these areas.Whatever older habitations were there, they were exterminated by influx of Europeans.
The exsting inhabitants of India and China became less aggressive over time under such agro-climatic conditions whereas people from areas like Arabian lands and Europe became very aggressive and violent under harsh living conditions. Migration from Europe and Arabian lands was a survival strategy and by the time these migrating populations reached India and China, they started settling along the productive plains. These were early settlements who have been contributing to dense population growth of India and China.
Industrialization started in Europe and America earlier than in India and China and both these countries remained agro based for a long time. Being agrarian economies, requirement of working hands was more a necessity. Hence people had the interest in increasing their progenies.
So in brief, all factors mentioned above have been the driving factors for dense human habitation and thereby a very large population in India and china.
- 历史:
印度和中国有着非常悠久的历史，时常会出现新的定居点。两个文明都有5000多年的历史。
美国这样的国家非常年轻，人类在这些地区的定居起步也很晚。无论那里的原始居民是谁，他们都被蜂拥而入的欧洲人消灭了。
随着时间的推移，印度和中国的现有居民在这种农业气候条件下变得不那么好斗，而来自阿拉伯和欧洲等地区的人在恶劣的生活条件下变得非常好斗、崇尚暴力。来自欧洲和阿拉伯大陆的移民则秉持生存策略，当这些移民人口到达印度和中国时，他们开始沿着富饶的平原定居下来。这些早期的定居点为印度和中国的人口密集增长做出了贡献。
欧洲和美国的工业化革命比印度和中国要早，这两个国家长期以来都以农业为基础。农业经济对劳动力的需求更大。因此人们偏向于尽可能多地繁衍后代。
因此，简而言之，上述所有因素都是导致印度和中国人口密集的驱动因素，因此现在印度和中国人口非常多。
Charu Joshi, lived in India
A not so appreciated theory by Malthus, a demographer, says that ‘food’ and ‘passion between sexes’ drives the population of a country. Ironically, the latter reason is looked down upon by the two of the most populous countries in this world. In both societies, pre-marital intercourse is traditionally unaccepted, while female infanticide marks a presence.
Both are the lands of ancient civilizations dating back to 1000–5000 BCE. Historically, these two societies are agrarian where a Marxst pattern of greater workforce leading to greater production was followed.
Consider this, eastern parts of the two Americas (Brazil, eastern states of USA etc.) are denser for the reasons that explorers settled there first and migrated later. Going by the same logic, the early people settled in the regions of India and China more than in any other place due to availability of resources. Added to this, was the prevalent ‘desire’ in both the civilizations to have a large family. India, though with a comparable growth rate was less populous than China because of its smaller area.
While India suffered its population explosion from 1950s to 1980s, Chinese political framework allowed it to adopt its strict one child policy (now 2 child), where penalties were assigned, as harsh as ineligibility for better housing and declaring pre-marital sex as illegal.
India, although in 1970s went overboard with its mass, often forced sterilization program, the policy was put to an end because of party politics and of course ‘religious sentiments’ of people. (Also, because it sort of did violate a human right or two). The new policy now focuses more on improving quality of life and incentives having less children.
China has considerably controlled its population. India, though now stabilizing is still not uniform in its demographics for the more educated states are under control and the poorer states (Bihar, UP ) are still receiving messages from god because no one in India has sex. This is another problem for the reason that to get greater seats in parliament, demography plays an important role and this just disincentives well performing state to adopt population control policies.
人口学家马尔萨斯提出的一个并不被普遍接受的理论是，“食物”和“性冲动”驱动着一个国家的人口的规模。具有讽刺意味的是，后一种原因被世界上人口最多的两个国家所轻视。在这两个社会，婚前性行为在传统上是不被世人接受的，还存在着杀害女婴的现象。
这两个国家都是可以追溯到公元前1000-5000年的文明古国。从历史上看，这两个社会都是农业社会，遵循了主义的劳动力增加导致生产增加的模式。
考虑到这一点，两个美洲东部地区(巴西、美国东部各州等)的人口密度更大，原因是探险家们首先在那里定居，后来才开始移民。按照同样的逻辑，因为资源的存在，早期人类在印度和中国定居的时间比在其他任何地方都要多。除此之外，两种文明中都普遍“希望”拥有大家庭。尽管印度的人口增长率与中国相当，但由于国土面积较小，印度的人口没有中国多。
印度在上世纪50年代至80年代经历了人口爆炸，而中国实行严格的独生子女政策(现在可以生两个孩子了)。
印度虽然在20世纪70年代推行了大规模的、甚至是强制性的绝育计划，但由于政党政治，当然还有人们的“宗教情绪”，这项政策最后不了了之。新政策现在更加注重提高生活质量、鼓励少生孩子。
中国已经大大控制了人口。印度，尽管目前的人口结构仍不稳定，受教育程度较高的邦得到了控制，而较贫穷的邦（比哈尔邦，北方邦等）仍然毫无节制。这是另一个问题，因为要在议会中获得更大的席位，人口结构起着重要的作用，这只会阻止条件较好的邦推行人口控制政策。
Praful Yadav
Causes of rapid growth of population in India
There are various causes responsible for the rapid growth of population in India. Generally all the causes can be divided into three categories like - (I) High birth rate, (II) Low birth rate, (III) Migration.
(I) High Birth Rate (Fertility) :
Birth rate refers to the number of children taking birth per thousand people. In 1991the birth rate was 29.9 per thousand. In 2000 the birth rate was 25.8 per thousand which is very compound to other counties of the world. Birth rate is high due to the following reasons.
Early Marriage System :
Early marriages are commonly seen in our country. It is generally in the case of women. Maxmum number of girls are married between 16 to 18 years. Early marriage prolongs the childbearing period and this leads to a high rate of growth of population.
Universal Marriage :
Marriage is universal practice and regarded as a sacred obligation in India. Presently in India about 76 per cent of the women are married at their reproductive age. By attaining the age of 50 only 5 out of 100 Indian women remain unmarried. As marriage is universal in our country, the birth rate becomes higher which raise the growth rate pf population.
印度人口快速增长的原因
造成印度人口快速增长的原因有很多。一般来说，所有的原因可以分为三类，如:(I)高出生率，(II)低出生率，(III)移民。
高出生率(生育率):
出生率是指每千人生育孩子的数量。1991年的出生率是29.9‰。在2000年，出生率是25.8‰。出生率高是由于以下原因。
早婚制度:
早婚在我国很常见。这通常是发生在妇女身上。在16到18岁之间结婚的女孩的数量最多。早婚延长了生育期，这导致了人口的高增长率。
婚姻普及度高:
结婚是社会普遍现象，在印度被视为神圣的义务。目前在印度，大约有76%的妇女在生育年龄结婚。到50岁时，100名印度妇女中只有5名未婚。由于婚姻在我国非常普及，出生率越来越高，提高了人口的增长率。
Joint Family System :
Thought the importance of jointly family system has considerably declined in our country the system has no disappeared till now. In a joint family system the children are looked after by all the earning members of the family. The system acts a protection against economic hardship. A member may not be in a position to earn something but when he gets married he gets more children. The birth rate as a result of which population increases.
Poverty :
Poverty is another factor which is mostly responsible for the rapid growth of population. India houses are the museum of poverty. According to 2001 census, nearly 37 per cent of people live below the poverty line. Small children in poor families are put to work and this helps to increase the family income. Children in poor families are considered as assets.
Illiteracy, ignorance and superstitions :
A majority of population in our country are illiterates. When illiteracy is combined with poverty it leads to firm belief a superstition. Children are considered as the gifts of God. They know nothing about the birth control measures. All those account of a higher birth rate in India's population.
Attitude towards male child :
Every Indians wants to have a male child. A male child is considered as an asset for the poor, a dowry earner for the greedy, and liberator for the God fearing, a life insurance for the middle man and a matter of pride for the mother.
几代同堂:
虽然大家庭现在已经没那么重要了，但至今仍未消失。在大家庭中，孩子们由家庭中所有有收入的成员抚养。这个制度能够对抗经济困难。一个成员可能没有能力挣钱，但当他结婚后，他会有更多的孩子。出生率最后带来了人口的增长。
贫困:
贫困是人口迅速增长的另一个主要原因。根据2001年的人口普查，近37%的人生活在贫困线以下。贫困家庭的小孩被迫工作赚钱，增加了家庭的收入。贫困家庭的孩子被视为财产。
文盲、无知和迷信:
我国大多数人口是文盲。文盲加上贫穷，让人开始有了坚信不疑的信仰，即迷信。孩子被认为是神的恩赐。他们对节育措施一无所知。这些因素都导致了印度更高的人口出生率。
对待男孩的态度:
每个印度人都想要男孩。一个男孩就是穷人的财产，一个为贪婪者赚取嫁妆的人，一个为敬畏神明的人获得解脱的人，一个给媒婆生活保障的人，一个让母亲感到骄傲的事情。
(II ) Low Death Rate : (Mortality rate why low in India) :
Death rate refers to the number of death taking place in thousand people. According to the 1991 census, the death rate was 10 per thousand. It decreased to 8.5 per thousand in 2001. Following are the causes responsible for the low death rate in India.
Control of epidemic and other deadly disease:
Epidemic like cholera, smallpox, plague, malaria etc. which too away lakhs of lives has been successfully controlled an even completely eliminated. The number of people dying in diseases has fallen.
Development of medical science :
Due to the development of medical science and invention of life saving drugs the death rate has sharply declined. Spread of health care facilities and hospitals in rural areas has created consciousness among the people about their health. The drinking water facilities food and other sanitation measure has helped to people to escape from death. This reduces the death rate to a marked extent in India.
Decline of infant mortality rate :
The infant mortality rate has declined due to mass immunization programmes and proper medical treatment to the children. In 1994, the infant mortality rate was 74 per thousand which declined to 70 per thousand in 2006. hen infant mortality rate decreases death rate also increases leading to heavy population growth.
低死亡率:(为什么印度死亡率低):
死亡率是指每千人中发生的死亡人数。根据1991年的人口普查，死亡率为千分之十。2001年，这一比例降至8.5‰。以下是印度死亡率低的原因。
流行病和其他致命疾病的控制:
霍乱、天花、鼠疫、疟疾等夺去无数生命的传染病已被成功控制，甚至完全消灭。死于疾病的人数少了。
医学的发展:
由于医学的发展和救命药的发明，死亡率急剧下降。卫生保健设施和医院在农村地区的普及，使人们对自己的健康有了意识。饮用水设施、食品和其他卫生措施帮助人们逃离死亡。这在很大程度上降低了印度的死亡率。
婴儿死亡率下降:
由于大规模免疫规划和对儿童的妥善治疗，婴儿死亡率已经下降。1994年，婴儿死亡率为74‰，2006年下降到70‰。婴儿夭折率下降，死亡率也下降，导致人口的大量增长。
(III) Migration :
Migration is another important point which is responsible for the higher growth rate of population. Is is seen that large number of people migrate from foreign counties to India and permanently stay here. Although this factor is not very crucial yet has increased the population of our country. These are the most important factors responsible for the population explosion in our county.
(3)移民:
移民是另一个重要的因素，它是人口增长率高的原因。有很多人从国外移居到印度并在那里永久居留。虽然这一因素不是很关键，但确实增加了我国的人口。这些都是造成我国人口爆炸式增长的最重要的因素。
Shailesh Hatte, lives in India
Well, let's look at the geography.
China and India are relatively big countries. So is the United States, which has the third largest population in the world. If the European Union was considered one country, it would have a population of half a billion.
All these countries are also in relatively temperate to tropical latitudes, with plenty of fertile land and easy navigable rivers. This is also the reason why, though having larger territories, Russia and Canada don't have large populations. Too cold and minimal natural transportation routes.
In terms of population density, India is ranked 33rd in the world, and China is 83rd. The US is ranked 179th for population density.
As an Indian, I'll add something specific to India.
For India, one reason is that the modern day state is really a combination of what have historically been many different countries with different ethnicities, cultural histories, and languages. When the British took over the subcontinent, they sort-of unified a whole bunch of independent kingdoms, and when they left and India became independent, they all fell together under one flag.
So modern day India is more like "The European Union" than "France" - the Tamil people in Tamil Nadu speak one language, the Malayali people in nearby Kerala speak another, while the Ladakhi people up in the Himalayas speak an entirely separate third - and none of the three speak Hindi. When we think of India, we tend to think of the monolithic whole, which has a very high population, when in fact no single region/state has even the population of America.
我们来看看地理。
中国和印度是相对较大的国家。美国也是如此，它是世界上人口第三多的国家。如果我们把欧盟视为一个国家，它拥有5亿人口。
这些国家都位于相对温和的热带纬度，拥有大量肥沃的土地和适合通航的河流。这也是为什么尽管俄罗斯和加拿大领土面积更大，但人口并不多的原因。这两个国家气候太冷，自然交通路线很少。
就人口密度而言，印度排在世界第33位，中国排在第83位。美国的人口密度排名第179位。
作为一个印度人，我想说说印度一些独有的东西。
对印度来说，其中一个原因是，现代国家实际上是历史上许多不同民族、不同文化历史和不同语言的国家的结合体。当英国人占领印度次大陆时，他们联合了许多独立的王国，当他们离开后，印度独立了，他们都倒在了一面旗帜下。
因此，现代印度更像是“欧盟”，而不是“法国”——泰米尔纳德邦的泰米尔人讲一种语言，喀拉拉邦附近的马来亚人讲另一种语言，而喜马拉雅山上的拉达基人讲完全不同的第三种语言——这三邦没有一个是讲印地语的。当我们想到印度时，我们往往会想到一个整体，人口很多，实际上没有哪个地区/邦的人口比得上美国。
Falak Dawar, Wait for it!
There are many reasons for India having more than 1.2 billion population and still increasing.
1) India is one of the oldest civilization to exst, so it becomes an obvious reason to have a large population.
2) Democracy- Unlike some countries where it is ban on having more than one or two children, there is no such coercion in India.
3) The climate of country and fertility among people of India is good, which becomes a good reason behind the fact India having a large people.
4) Illiteracy and Unawareness- Here in India many people are unaware about contraceptives and some even hesitate to buy contraceptives, because in INDIA buying a CONDOM is a Taboo.
印度拥有12亿多人口，而且人口还在增长，原因有很多。
印度是现存最古老的文明之一，因此拥有大量人口就不足为奇了。
2)民*—不像某些国家禁止生育一个以上或两个以上的孩子，印度没有这样的强制措施。
3)印度的气候和印度人的生育能力很好，这是印度人口众多的原因之一。
4)文盲和无知—在印度，很多人不知道避孕药具的存在，有些人甚至不愿意买避孕药具，因为在印度，购买避孕套是一种禁忌。
5) Poverty- Due to poverty, people consider that if they have many children then, there would be many people who'll work as hel hand for the family.
6) Religious reasons- In some religions using contraceptive is not allowed according to their scriptures, so people of those religions who follow their faiths religiously, don't use contraceptives, this is one of the biggest reason behind India having a so big population.
7) Old beliefs- There is already a big population exsts in India, which thinks that children are representatives of God, so they like to have more children.
8) Son-wanting-mentality- In India irrespective of religion most people prefer sons rather than daughters, so to have more sons they take more chances to have children and in those cases where people are blessed by daughters and no son they try again and again until they are blessed by son.
5)贫困—由于贫困，人们认为如果他们有很多孩子，就会有很多人手劳动，养活家庭。
6)宗教原因—在一些宗教中，根据他们的宗教教义，是不允许避孕的，所以那些虔诚信奉宗教的人是不使用避孕工具的，这是印度人口众多的最大原因之一。
7)老观念—印度已有很多人认为孩子是神的代表，所以他们想要更多的孩子。
8)想要儿子的心态—在印度，不管信仰什么宗教，相较于女儿，大多数人都更喜欢儿子，所以他们会冒更多的风险去生孩子，以便多生几个儿子，对那些生了女儿的人，他们会不停地生不停地生，直到生出儿子为止。
Nikhil Pathare, an inquisitive Quoran
My 2 cents on high population in India. Back in early 1900s, owing to lack of medicinal facilities in rural areas, child death rate was very high. Thus, it was normal to have 6-8 children in a family, considering that only 2-3 of them would survive to adulthood.
Post independence, there was a general improvement in medicine availability and healthcare facilities in India, making the death rate go down drastically. However, Indian government during mid-twentieth century had a poor policy of advocating the importance of family planning to the masses. As a result the trend of having more than 4 children in the family continued for a few decades. The lag between fall of death rate and birth rate led to the exponential increase of the population in twentieth century.
Thus a population of 200 million in early 1900s shooted upto more than a billion by 2000.
我对印度人口为何如此庞大的看法如下。早在20世纪初，由于农村地区缺乏医疗设施，儿童死亡率非常高。因此，一个家庭有6-8个孩子是很正常的事，因为他们中只有2-3个能平安长大成人。
独立后，印度的药物供应和医疗设施普遍改善，死亡率大幅下降。然而，印度政府在20世纪中叶推行了一项糟糕的政策，向百姓宣传计划生育的重要性。因此，家庭中有4个以上孩子的潮流持续了几十年的时间。死亡率下降和出生率之间的滞后反应导致了20世纪人口呈现出指数级的增长。
因此，20世纪初的2亿人口到2000年猛增到了10亿多。
Lars Eidevall, Artistic Director in international Performing arts at Palladium Malmo (1996-present)
Chinese civilisation has always grown based on rice farming along the big rivers, which formed a large population. 35% of work force today works in farming, around 240 million Chinese, 75 times the number of farmers in the USA. But through heavy industrialisation, farm land is diminishing and pollution is growing, so there are some serious issues to deal with there today. Today China has overcome the goal of 2 children per fertile couple (1,7 is the current level, which is lower than the US), so overpopulation is no longer a threat, but better use of resources is a challenge. In ancient times China had 50-100 million people, in the 18–19th century it doubled, with severe poverty and famines, and under Mao it doubled again from 500 to 1000 million, until the one child policy in 1979. Traditional agricultural societies give birth to around 6 children and hope for some of them to survive to take over. In the 1970s the ideal was 2 children in cities and 3–4 in the countryside.
中国文明的发展一直是建立在大河沿岸水稻种植的基础上的，这形成了大量的人口。今天有35%的劳动力从事农业，也就是约2.4亿中国人，是美国农民的75倍。但是重工业的发展导致了耕地的减少和污染的增加，所以今天有一些严重的问题需要解决。如今，中国已经实现了每对育龄夫妇生育两个孩子的目标(目前的水平是1,7个，低于美国)，因此人口过剩不再是一个威胁，但如何更好地利用资源将成为一个挑战。在古代，中国有5000万至1亿人口，在18世纪至19世纪，人口翻了一番；在毛的领导下，人口又翻了一番，从5亿增至10亿，直到1979年出台了独生子女政策。传统的农业社会里，人们平均会生6个孩子，希望其中几个能存活下来，代代相传。在20世纪70年代，理想状态是城市居民夫妇生育2个孩子，农村夫妇生育3-4个孩子。
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