China is the most populous country in the world
At the end of October 2011, the world's populationexceeded 7 billion. The fact that the most populous country in the world - China, is known to everyone, and this is a fact from time immemorial. For the entire foreseeable history of human civilization, China's population has always been the most numerous. It is no accident that the demographic problems are especially large here.
History
In the middle of the XIX century the Chinese was every thirdman on our planet. The most populous country in the world at that time read about 420 million inhabitants, and there were some 1.25 billion people worldwide. The problems of shortage of land suitable for farming, despite the large size of this country, were relevant for China always, but at a time when the majority of the population was engaged in agriculture, they acquired a huge scale.
Since 1850 in the Middle Kingdom began a bloodywar, which unleashed the Taiping, inhabiting the southern regions of the country. They rebelled against the Manchu empire Qing, on the side of which the foreign armies - English and French - appeared. For a decade and a half, 20 to 30 million people died. The oldest population of the world's most populous country was able to restore only to the beginning of another war - the First World War.
The emergence of the PRC
The consequences of the war with Japan turned out to be for Chinanot as catastrophic as the results of the Taiping uprising. Despite the fact that the loss of the Chinese army was 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 had increased to 538 million.
The war against Japan was replaced by a civil -the struggle of the People's Liberation Army of China against the Kuomintang. As a result of the victory of Mao Zedong's troops, the most populous country of the world continued to exist under a new name - the People's Republic of China.
The most stringent demographic policy
First, the new authorities supported educationlarge families. By 1960, more than 650 million people lived in China. But the extreme economic policy of the Chinese Communist Party, led by the "great helmsman", led to a catastrophic situation with the provision of food for the population. From the consequences of the famine, according to various sources, from 20 to 40 million people died. But the losses were offset by high birth rates, and by the early 1980s, the PRC population was 969 million.
One of the ways to combat the shortageMao considered the restriction of fertility. The CCP launched another campaign, now under the slogan "One family - one child". Under this motto, legislation was enacted providing for a system of severe penalties for the appearance of a second child in the family. As a result, the rate of population growth in recent decades has declined.
Nuances of Statistics
Although today only one in five earthlings -a citizen of the PRC, and the most densely populated country in the world - a dwarf state of Monaco, statistics only formally reflects the demographic situation. Number of Chinese people per km2 - 648 people, which is three times less than the numbercitizens of Monaco on the same area, but, given the difference in the size of these two states, we can say that this demographic figure in the Middle Kingdom is one of the highest in the world.
This is due to the extremely uneven distribution ofof the inhabitants. In some regions, especially in large metropolitan areas, the density of the population is several times higher than in areas where there is not even arable land. Perhaps Bangladesh is really the most densely populated agrarian country in the world, but the urgency of the ancient Chinese proverb "Many people, but little earth" is only growing stronger.
Prospects
The policy of restricting population growth inChina is bearing fruit, though, while giving rise to other problems - the sharp aging of the population and the growing disparity between the number of men and women. Although citizens have found various ways to circumvent the bans on the second child - for example, women give birth in other countries where children obtain other citizenship - the PRC government is ready to reconsider tough demographic policies, especially in rural areas.
According to forecasts of specialists, by 2050 will bethe reality is another answer to the question of which is the most populous country in the world. Their calculations show that the place of China may well be occupied by another giant from developing countries - India. Even today the gap between the indicators of the two states is not so great. According to statistics, at the beginning of 2016, China has 1 374 440 000 people, in India - 1 283 370 000. If we take into account the slowdown in the population growth rate of 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, it becomes clear the validity of such expectations.
