At the end of October 2011, the world's population exceeded 7 billion. The fact that the most populated country in the world is China is known to everyone, and this has been a fact since time immemorial. For the entire visible history of human civilization, the population of China has always been the largest. It is no coincidence that demographic problems are becoming especially widespread here.
History
In the middle of the XIX century, every third person on our planet was Chinese. The most populated country in the world then read about 420 million inhabitants, and according to some sources, around 1.25 billion people lived around the world. Despite the large size of this country, the problems of shortage of land suitable for agriculture were always relevant for China, but at the time when the majority of the population was engaged in agriculture, they acquired a gigantic scale.
In 1850, a bloody war began in the Celestial Empire, which was unleashed by the Taipins, who lived in the southern regions of the country. They rebelled against the Manchu Qing empire, on the side of which foreign armies — the English and French — came forward. Over a decade and a half, between 20 and 30 million people died. The most populated country in the world was able to restore its former strength only by the beginning of another war - the First World War.
The emergence of China
The consequences of the war with Japan were not as catastrophic for China as the results of the Taiping uprising. Despite the fact that the losses of the Chinese army were eight times greater than that of imperial Japan, the innumerable resources of internal China led to the fact that by the end of the war its population increased to 538 million.
The war against Japan was replaced by a civil war - the struggle of the People's Liberation Army of China against the Kuomintang. As a result of the victory of the troops of Mao Zedong, the most populated country in the world continued to exist under a new name - the People's Republic of China.
The toughest demographic policy
At first, the new authorities supported the formation of large families. By 1960, more than 650 million people were already living in China. But the extreme economic policies of the Chinese Communist Party , led by the "great helmsman", led to a catastrophic situation with the provision of food to the population. According to various sources, from 20 to 40 million people died from the effects of hunger. But the losses were offset by high birth rates, and by the beginning of the eighties the population of China amounted to 969 million inhabitants.
One of the means to combat the shortage of agricultural products, Mao considered birth control. The CCP launched another campaign, now under the slogan "One family - one child." Under this motto, legislation was enacted providing for a system of harsh penalties for the appearance of a second baby in the family. As a result, population growth has declined in recent decades.
Statistics Nuances
Although today only one in five earthlings is a citizen of China, and the most densely populated country in the world is the dwarf state of Monaco, statistics only formally reflect the demographic situation. The number of Chinese people per km 2 - 648 people, which is three times less than the number of citizens of Monaco on the same area, but given the difference in the sizes of these two states, we can say that this demographic indicator in the Middle Kingdom is one of the highest in the world.
This is due to the extremely uneven distribution of residents. In some regions, especially in large megacities, the population density is several times higher than in areas where even arable land is absent. Perhaps Bangladesh is indeed the most densely populated agrarian country in the world, but the relevance of the ancient Chinese proverb “A lot of people, but not enough land” only intensifies.
Prospects
The policy of restricting population growth in China is bearing fruit, however, giving rise to other problems - a sharp aging of the population and an increase in the imbalance between the number of men and women. Although citizens have found various ways to circumvent the prohibitions on a second child - for example, women give birth in other countries where children receive different citizenships - the PRC government is ready to review tough demographic policies, especially in rural areas.
According to experts, by 2050, another answer to the question of what is the most populated country in the world will become a reality. Their calculations show that another giant from developing countries, India, may well take the place of China. Even today, the gap between the performance of the two states is not so wide. According to statistics, at the beginning of 2016, 1,374,440,000 people live in China and 1,283,370,000 in India. If we take into account the slowdown in population growth among the current leader and the steady growth of this indicator in one of the most dynamically developing countries in the world and its economic potential, the validity of such expectations will become clear.