_Year_ _Population_ 1578 (before the Manchus) 10,621,463 families or 60,692,856 individuals 1662 19,203,233 families 100,000,000 individuals * 1710 23,311,236 families 116,000,000 individuals * 1729 25,480,498 families 127,000,000 individuals * 1741 143,411,559 individuals 1754 184,504,493 individuals 1778 242,965,618 individuals 1796 275,662,414 individuals 1814 374,601,132 individuals 1850 414,493,899 individuals (1953) (601,938,035 individuals) * Approximately It may be objected that these figures are incorrect and exaggerated. Undoubtedly they contain errors. But the first figure (for 1578) of some sixty millions is in close agreement with all other figures of early times; the figure for 1850 seems high, but cannot be far wrong, for even after the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion of 1851, which, together with its after-effects, costs the lives of countless millions, all statisticians of today estimate the population of China at more than four hundred millions. If we enter these data together with the census of 1953 into a chart (see p. 273), a fairly smooth curve emerges; the special features are that already under the Ming the population was increasing and, secondly, that the high rate of increase in the population began with the long period of internal peace since about 1700. From that time onwards, all China's wars were fought at so great a distance from China proper that the population was not directly affected. Moreover, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Manchus saw to the maintenance of the river dykes, so that the worst inundations were prevented. Thus there were not so many of the floods which had often cost the lives of many million people in China; and there were no internal wars, with their heavy cost in lives. But while the population increased, the tillage failed to increase in the needed proportion. I have, unfortunately, no statistics for all periods; but the general tendency is shown by the following table: _Date_ _Cultivated area_ mou _per person_ _in_ mou 1578 701,397,600 11.6 1662 531,135,800 1719 663,113,200 1729 878,176,000 6.1 (1953) (1,627,930,000) (2.7)