Population of the World by Country (1600-2020)

Humanity has embarked on an unprecedented period of population growth over the past 400 years. Over the course of this demographic transition great changes have swept the planet, no government from 1600 remaining uninterrupted until the present. This video follows the top 25 countries or political units by population at any given year. It begins in the year 1600 and continues to the present, where more than 14 times the people now inhabit the planet.
A wide variety of sources made this work possible. Angus Maddison's population tables, tacitus.nu, Geacron, the CIA Factbook, the World Bank, and several historical atlases all provided information over the last several months. Given the massive colonial empires prominent throughout much of the timeframe, all colonial populations are included as a part of the mother country. Unfortunately, due to a lack of sources, many smaller realms and kingdoms have been excluded in earlier periods, especially Native American tribes, several Sub-Saharan African kingdoms, and the Aboriginal people of Oceania. This may mean early totals are a bit low. Following about 1800, the vast majority of the world is included in totals. The erratic changes on the bars are caused by border changes and the rise/fall of the various powers. Rather than tracking population in a static area, this visualization seeks to emphasize the changing nature of demographic power throughout history.
"Egmont Overture" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons...

[@HusaviProductions]

Nice! I appreciate that you use proper country names and flags so there’s no Germany in 1600s for example

[@ajace5883]

Well "German Reich" is not THAT proper. Reich means nothing but "Empire". So it can be named Empire just as the 2nd until 1918.

[@t-doghammer8926]

@@ajace5883 it’s the official Name, the german Reich existed from 1871-1945 but I unterstand you doubt.

[@ajace5883]

@@t-doghammer8926 In English it should be called empire. In German Reich. That are the respective words for the same thing.

[@t-doghammer8926]

@@ajace5883 ahh, sorry, I’m German so I confused it a little, have a nice weekend!

[@ajace5883]

@@t-doghammer8926 Bin ich doch auch :D Dachte du wärst Engländer oder so und wüsstest das nicht^^

[@oew7920]

Maratha empire: ha! My population is bigger than yours uk! Uk: welcome to the empire

[@conservativebrit1120]

lol!

[@xenotypos]

Yeah, population (and gdp) didn't mean that much when the technological level and other stuff were so different. But it's interesting when comparing close nations (from the same civilisation). It's cool they counted the colonial population (for once...). But the best would have been to also have the metropolitain population too in parenthesis, so that we can compare the two at any given time. Since for actual power that population was way more important than the colonial native ones.

[@xenotypos]

@Bhuvansunder Singh Nayyar It depends, it's playing with words here: the gdp of pre-industrial societies depended entirely of the population. So having more population immediately meant a bigger gdp, but since it was the economy necessary to feed the population, with no excess wealth, it didn't mean much. The "historical gdp" (since gdp didn't exist at the time) is actually simply calculated by food production, nothing else (check Angus Maddison's work, it's really only that) . The actual financial and economic power of Britain was arguably a cut above any Indian entity of the time. Not even counting the difference in technology. People always get the wrong idea because today the gdp is almost everything. It was more complicated in the past.

[@xenotypos]

@Bhuvansunder Singh Nayyar What does it have to do with what I said ? I'm talking about when India was colonized. I'm not exactly a fan of England as a country, but it's a fact they had (at that moment) a lot more actual financial ressources (despite the difference in gdp), and that European technology and science during this time period was above anywhere else. I know about the different civilisations that existed throughout history in modern day India yes, but that was not my point. I'm talking about the mid-18th century and the early 19th century.

[@suqierta6618]

Öncelikle Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun değişen bayraklarını koymadılar, şimdi Türkiye, 10 bayrak falan değiştirdiler.

[@Ged_223]

This is incredibly interesting

[@you.missed.the.joke.]

eh

[@freedomjam6951]

@@Dohan06 India also uses your comments to get the most imports (fun fact: African babies are born poor but have fathers)

[@xenotypos]

People, remember: COLONIES ARE COUNTED. It's important to understand Spain's population from the 1500s to the 1700s, and above all Britain's population from the 1700s on (India). Also France's population from the 1830s on.

[@glowings26804]

true

[@OksitusRC]

Turkish comeback is real over Germany lol

[@captainboon2978]

It's always bothered me that the circle in the flag of Bangladesh is slightly off-center.

[@jecobreza2406]

Because when the flag fly the circle appears centered.

[@a-z6806]

Same

[@oofintic5734]

@@jecobreza2406 exactly, the designers are true perfectionists

[@SLKRR]

Any chance of seeing the data behind this that you assembled? Incredible job not only dealing with colonial empires and border changes, but also with accurate country names and flags. It's really hard to get good population data pre-1945, so this is an amazing amount of work you've done here.

[@georgios_5342]

I spotted one mistake although minuscule. In 1913 the Kingdom of Hellas (Greece) acquired various of its national regions after its successes in the Balkan Wars, doubling their territories and population to 5.2 million. So technically it should have been on the last spot instead of Colombia, just for that year.

[@Ginger4348]

I think Greece had 5.2 million but was just behind Colombia.

[@farukkams6189]

Turkey After 2000s:What is a condom?

[@winstonchurchill4614]

2010 dan sonra ciddi bir mülteci akını oldu o yüzden arttı hatta 2000 li yıllarda condom dağıtıldı diye duymuştum

[@cakr2196]

@@winstonchurchill4614 nüfus sayısına türkiyeli olmayan dahil değil yalnız

[@farukkams6189]

@@winstonchurchill4614 kondom şart cidden artık bu devirde hala 10-15 çocuk getirip geçinemiyoruz diyen dolu o kadar çocuğu Türkiye'nin en zengini bile getirmiyor 😂

[@dylangtech]

This video held a lot of surprises for me, but of course I kept my eyes on the Stars and Stripes. I found out this morning that our fertility rate in the US is higher than all of Europe except for Monaco, France, Ireland, and Turkey, and all of those countries are exclusively immigration. With the very slow slow fall of abortion, contraception, and sexual degeneracy, America’s birthrate could re-stabilize in the future back to replacement rate, but that will take a long time. We’re approaching 1.8, while 2.1 is replacement rate. Our population growth is still just people living longer and immigration. We need babies, and I’m at the age and place where my married friends seem all too keen to deliver (quite literally lol)

[@tokenos]

Poland just keeps backing and desipiring over and over 🙄

[@Nedyaj]

Get invaded

[@rifani0026]

🇮🇩🇵🇱

[@TheMohammadDanish]

I'm impressed that it has used flags and names of the empires for ex Maratha and Mughal Empire, also taken world events into consideration. Btw, India badly needs a population control policy. Otherwise it will be a disaster for us.

[@NarasimhaDiyasena]

The only way to artificially slow India’s population is to implement child policies China had. But that is a double edged sword that China is now learning the hard way. Because of child policy, China no longer has a population that is capable of sustaining the economy, which has grown out of proportion. By contrast, because of the opposite child policy, India no longer has an economy that is capable of sustaining the population, which has grown out of proportion. The United States by contrast was able to maintain the population in the Goldilocks zone through immigration controls. The only country that I know of that is naturally in the Goldilocks zone, is Sri Lanka. They have maintained a population of 20 million for decades and will continue to maintain one for decades to come. The problem there is that the corruption has wasted the golden opportunity for sustained growth...

[@svetzrepublic5132]

Yes

[@Gpmaster1234]

Yes 2 child policy but Muslim didn't allowed😅 They think we have freedom to birth many child

[@avantelvsitania3359]

Incredible how after independence, Brazil still had less population than Portugal. Mind-blowing

[@alaedine2172]

Thank you for this amazing video

[@CRUSADERO1]

I cant believe that Dai Viet (Vietnam), my country only have ~6m population in 1600, and other neighbors, like Korea have double our population, or Japan even have triple! People should know that Dai Viet is a major power in Asia even in 15th century, they had about 1 million troops to defeated 500k men of Ming's army in war for independence and then can field 300k men to invade Champa. That army size in those era is consider an enormous (Napoleon Grand Army only have ~500k during invasion to Russia), and country can field those number cant have small population.

[@glowings26804]

Đại Việt sau đó là thuộc địa của Pháp, năm 1892 dân Pháp tự nhiên tăng lên đáng kể. Thêm nữa bạn nói Thế kỷ 15, lol người ta đang thống kê 1600-nay, nghĩa là từ thế kỷ 17 r bạn =))))

[@oppro8009]

No

[@fehervari98]

Wow, this is incredible!

[@hello-ek8qz]

The incredibles movie 😂

[@lierx.agerate8230]

Eventually when humans have 10 billion total for over 100 years we might finally be able to sustain efficiently. Either that or we are doomed

[@reymichaelsungazornosa4040]

nah don't worry about that

[@NarasimhaDiyasena]

Que the elitist sponsored corona vax or another one of their world wars to solve that problem

[@jeffersonknux1550]

We need family planning

[@SunsetSecondary]

YOU UPLOADED POGCHAMP

[@health187]

this is a exceptionally video. thanks. :)

[@chachachi-hh1ks]

The largest known ant supercolony has about 307 millions of ants. A human country (namely China under Qing dynasty) passed this treshold at 1790. We can build more numerous collectives than ants since around 1790! 😱

[@ttin5596]

Ming and Qing are China's dynastys

[@mentalinsane9283]

They still are different states

[@kc5226]

My country ranked at 3rd in 1700, but now not even in the top 10.

[@Smitology]

It's confusing as that's exactly when Tokugawa Shogunate overtook the Ottoman Empire for 3rd place. So are you Turkish or Japanese?

[@theburden9920]

@@Smitology i think hes japanese

[@joekent5675]

America: ope, excuse me, coming through, pardon me, sorry, gotta squeeze by, I'm needed up front.

[@COLMECTIGAMINGANDMORE]

Hey this music is from HOI4!

[@muhammedkapl9140]

Road to 56

[@COLMECTIGAMINGANDMORE]

@@muhammedkapl9140 do you play hoi4 too?

[@muhammedkapl9140]

@@COLMECTIGAMINGANDMORE yes

[@Arda367]

Turkey and Ottoman Empire! 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷

[@BackroomsAnimate]

I have a question please answer, how did you get the data for the empires, kingdoms, and dynastys

[@Intellectual-stupidity]

Probably either estimates or official census data

[@Top-10-Geography.]

WOW! This is amazing!

[@munnathippu7383]

Good job 👍

[@mrslick3366]

I remember when this had 7k views or even less now look at it

[@minkabby9536]

What anime is your pfp

[@mrslick3366]

To your eternity now

[@minkabby9536]

@@mrslick3366 thanks

[@skymaster0yt]

1:04 The Delogue. Poland got invaded by multiple countries and lost a lot of people

[@JudgePlaysRoblox]

At 7:38 watch the population go up really fast

[@makimisyuhlo4566]

India was MUghal Empire just so you know...

[@avijaiswal5819]

Mughal +vijaynagar empire +golakunda sultanet

[@ritupandey2324]

@@avijaiswal5819 maratha+nayak also

[@RealMadrid010]

pakistan

[@avijaiswal5819]

@@RealMadrid010 pakistan only after 1947.

[@Walid-gm2ns]

Regency of Algiers was a part of the Ottoman empire you should have added its population to the empire.

[@BritishBoi88]

Malla Dynastys flag looks like nepals

[@frank-js9nf]

Ming Denasity (China ), Qing Denasity (China )

[@ajsw-rt4yt]

Nice 😊

[@pyrokatarina]

Almost all nations are rising by the end of the 2010s meanwhile Japan's population is decreasing

[@alext236]

The Belgium flag has never been red and blue at the end of it. For our independence you could have seen the actual flag inverted with red yellow black, that it. Thanks tho for the vid

[@accountthatillusetocomment3041]

4:42 Portugal literally lost half of it's population with the independence of Brazil. Most of it were slaves but wow.

[@Milemione234]

Korea was top 9 in 17c, Not even entered in top 25 now lol

[@behruzmemmedov7807]

The Afshar Empire, the Safavid state is not a state of Persian origin. They are Azerbaijani states of Turkish origin. Research it, learn it, and then present it as data.

[@artin3926]

Shut up dude ( its only unreal numbers but azarbaijan of turkish origin😂so funy bro

[@atulalexander2416]

Very interesting

[@baludojad9289]

Who is watching from Maharashtra/India hit like

[@manoelmusicchannel]

i like it bravo

[@beyaro1897]

1947, why the population of UK shrunk?

[@Smitology]

India became independant

[@Smitology]

The ~300M people stopped being part of UK

[@beyaro1897]

Ok

[@ranilakshmibai7382]

Due to Mahatma Gandhi

[@Kayypags]

Too many Protos/States/Regions/Non countriss

[@Moesthetics]

United kingdom did not have so many inhabitants

[@claudius7325]

Yes they had. But India, Australia and so on belonged to it too

[@Moesthetics]

I See now but not only on the islanf

[@claudius7325]

@@Moesthetics yes that's right

[@Smitology]

@@Moesthetics Yeah they should have called in British Empire

[@xenotypos]

British empire, thus India, thus loads of people.

[@Luskinha-lp7wj]

Hello from Brazil 😀😀

[@frank-js9nf]

Mughal empire in actual was founded by mongols from China during China Yuan Denasity , most indians do not know about this

[@Asuncion-hs7kn]

No. He was an Uzbek descendant of the Timurid empire that ended in Afghanistan, which conquered most of the Indo

[@Luboman411]

Fascinating that the British Empire for at least two decades had more people than any Chinese entity. I didn't know that had had happened. Always figured some political regime in China would have more people than the whole British Empire. I guess India had more people than I imagined. The same with all those little empires and kingdoms that were the size of European countries in the 1700s--all were in India, since I had never heard of them until now. Then there's Tokugawa Japan--for a good stretch there it had more people than either the Russian or the Spanish Empires. Little Japan was hella-crowded 300 to 400 years ago...

[@xenotypos]

France was rather close to Japan tbh (before the industrial era), even above at some point, and almost all the french population before the 19th century was in France, not in colonies like Britain or Spain. It's terrible what happened to the french population in the 19th century, had they grown normally they would have the same pop as Japan today (128 million people, compared with 66 million of french people).

[@StoreslemLilleslem]

this is wrong. a 2 sec google search says india has 1.326m and china has 1.409m its a very big diffrence from this video

[@Catani99]

A google search doesn’t give those values wtf?

[@Dennan]

its crazy how many more people india and china has compared to the rest of the world, if they could reduce thier population over time by less children or such they could probly achive similar living standards to that of the west, just think of all the food and houses , infrastrucre, energy ecct ect it takes to have that many people, tho it would have go very slowly down so its stable.

[@ReSSwend]

This is unknown. Africa had a very small population by the time the Europeans arrived. However, they did not achieve the same results.

[@Dennan]

@@ReSSwend aa okay

[@hameemabrar1863]

dost data are reliable or not 🙂🙂

[@Vietphattech]

Yeal, Đại Việt always top in the world.

[@-_ayxanzeynalli_-507]

Sefevi doesn't persian is a türk and afshar

[@mitteleuropa8485]

Cool 😎

[@manetwenty1093]

U know Y The UK was soo populated until 1948 cuz those guys invaded India and there r lot of us Indians so since we were owned by the British we were being counted as their hmmm.. you know servants and now we r all frnds which I know doesn't make any sense 😂

[@ugodgud]

Wow poland Lithuania hit 10 mil three times

[@Zangetu1962]

日本は701AD(或いは673AD)からずっと日本であり皇国(帝国)す。

[@y.r._]

Kind of stupid that you included colonies but whatever...

[@asdawasda]

I think that's what makes this video good

[@tarihseyyah9726]

poland lithuania ottoman mughal brothers

[@giv4988]

This is not good valors...

[@alisnwonderland]

6:44 what on earth happened uk why so many people

[@veroniquegiraud624]

British Empire including India

[@alisnwonderland]

@@veroniquegiraud624 that's what I was thinking

[@rayan-jm3px]

God👍

[@teanchaiploytumthailandsin7116]

thailand เทียนชัย ปล่อยทุม

[@dannyhu_]

GEKOLONISEERD

[@AyutaTYujin]

Japan is no.3 in 1700s!🇯🇵

[@natisaacs4107]

8:45

[@joaovitorarrais5852]

Brazil 🇧🇷 huehue

[@Useribwhusi]

Maratha Empire 🙏

[@vrimb1]

haha ireland hit got 5 million people before the united states. that funny becuase they dont have 5 million people now. Poor potato man.

[@viktorcsanyi5224]

vRimb I had a stroke reading that and fucking died

[@greninjamastergabe6452]

It's because of the Potato Famine. Millions of Irish people died or emigrated (between 20 and 25 percent).

[@vrimb1]

@@greninjamastergabe6452 I know that, thats what poor potato man means. and it is more than a 25% reduction. they had 8 million in 1848, and only 2.9million in the 1920s. Some of that is the loss of northern ireland tho

[@greninjamastergabe6452]

@@vrimb1 Apparently, 1 million people died and another 2.1 million emigrated. That would be a total of 3.1 million, which is greater than 25 percent (closer to 38-40 percent). Speaking of America, many Irish people went to America as a result of the Potato Famine. I'm American, and I'm part Irish (though my Irish ancestors didn't come here until much later).

[@vrimb1]

@@greninjamastergabe6452 I am part Irish american also

[@TheFrenchPlayer]

India : *About to catch up China* Video : *Ends* Me : *Nooooooooo*

[@just_dmitri3192]

Just realized occupied lands during wars are counted to a countries population. The detail is amazing

[@TrepeGB]

Wow. The population of the planet has more than doubled since I was born. 😳

[@alexthomas3745]

First billion 1832 Second billion 1932 1 century... And after another 90 years, another 5.7 billions... Well, a bit scary.😑

[@Fujiwara_No_Sai]

6:45 oh dear, most nationals were in the poppulation decline when they lost their land. But in case of Russia at 1920, that is real people dead in war to fight for their ideal. I really respect, admire their mind, their spirit of courage👍🙏

[@LordDark102]

Look at Polish-Lithunia at 1:04. They lost no land there. Swedish deluge and Chmielnicki uprising happened and over 1/3 of population died. 2 times more deadly for Poland than 2ww.

[@mihailusharov8516]

Наконец-то нормальный ролик! Хотя нет, опять с флагами напутали!

[@richardthomas5362]

I like this. It shows the actual countries which existed at the time rather than "modern equivalents".

[@Andrey-vp6qc]

1936 Japan use nitro))

[@diegoureta9435]

They probably conquered big part of China by that time

[@edielgomez3809]

@こんにちわ 日本語 7:05 Too bad the Japanese empire did not conquer all China.

[@mentalinsane9283]

@@edielgomez3809 too bad? They wanted to exterminate them!

[@natisaacs4107]

8:05

[@ryufireblade]

This might be my favorite population over time graph I've ever seen! Thank so much for making this, I'm looking forward to your future videos!

[@sauliusvitkauskas8741]

Qing Dynasty:I'm going to top United Kingdom:Lol amateus

[@ssik9460]

@SEBIN VLOGS ANG GAMING well yes

[@BamberdittoPingpong]

@SEBIN VLOGS ANG GAMING Which is a mistake because company rule or the British Raj was never officially an intergrated part of the Kingdom of Great Britain or the United Kingdom, so it should say British Empire if they’re gonna include India

[@bezaxispepe29]

@MALLU KERALITE it should be written as BRITISH Raj not United Kingdom.

[@darkalligraph]

This is fascinating. I once tried to make a video of the countries of Europe by population from 1500-2020 like the one you made previously. I ended up giving up, due to the sheer amount of effort needed. Now you have taken a step up and done the whole world! The amount of time needed to find sources, especially for populations in before 1900, then to compile it all, is so much. I am so glad someone made this, and this well too. I would have loved to create this, but in the end it was too much of a task for me, thank you for creating this! It was also interesting how you included colonies in population, which is why the UK's population reached 400 million. I just wish flourish had a way to change the name/flag of a bar, without having to create a new row altogether. The bars going all the way down, and being replaced is a bit distracting, especially around the World Wars, but that's a limitation of flourish, not the video.. Overall, incredible video.

[@xenotypos]

"It was also interesting how you included colonies in population" That's actually the most impressive feature for me. Way harder than just counting the metropolitan population. At the same time though, I would have liked to also have the European/metropolitan population in parentheses just for the sake of comparison (and because it's a more relevant marker for actual power). Both of those data are interesting in their own way.

[@darkalligraph]

@@xenotypos Yeah, this is something we don't often see, for a reason, whether the data is more unaccessible, etc. But it is really interesting, I agree!

[@MatheusRodrigues-if9cr]

Primeiro gráfico que vejo desse tipo em que o cara se preocupou em botar as respectivas bandeiras e nomes dos países dependendo da época, além de contar a população dos territórios ocupados, ao invés de só contar os territórios atuais. Muito bom! Good job!

[@BrasilRankings]

Nós também temos um canal de gráfico, se puder dê uma passadinha.

[@johanimal1485]

This is kinda dramatic to see the graph of the world population grow so fast, damn we are really really too much, nigeria and india calm down or it will be a sad future

[@MrData3DStats]

Pakistan and India 🇮🇳 🇵🇰

[@noodengr3three825]

Thanks for the perspective. Kingdoms and countries long forgotten brought to mind

[@EmperorSigismund]

China in 1850: "Hey guys, new rebellion just dropped."

[@UnDeadArmy935]

The 1st bilion of abitants was reach in 1804 not in 1821, 3° in 1961 (not 1960), 6° in 1999 (not 2000),

[@yougoslavia]

When will you make another video?

[@gashidune5811]

turkiye had 3rd highest population in 1600 xd

[@arindacantiknodebat7330]

Indonesian 🇮🇩

[@annehebert510]

The United Kingdom has never had a population of 70 million, never mind 500 million. You mean the British Empire?

[@Smitology]

Yeah I think it was the British Empire

[@ukzinhoblablabla]

Yes it is

[@TheBest-nj1ck]

Can you please tell me how do you convert the flourish visualisation to a video?

[@user-0r67h2wdhu]

Click on the fullscreen and screen record

[@TimelapseCarTravel]

People's Republic of China Republic of India United States of America Republic of Indonesia Islamic Republic of Pakistan Federative Republic of Brazil Federal Republic of Nigeria People's Republic of Bangladesh Russian Federation United Mexican States Japan Ethiopia Republic of the Philippines Arab Republic of Egypt Socialist Republic of Vietnam Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of Turkey Federal Republic of Germany Islamic Republic of Iran Kingdom of Thailand French Republic United Kingdom Italian Republic United Republic of Tanzania Republic of South Africa

[@Not_St4rz]

INDIA IN 2023!

[@NaJJ]

The uk losing all there countries they had example india or like canada or maybe like australia its sad

[@tugeei6635]

weird, Ive watched alot of these and done research and noone seems to know what country is more populous in 1942. japan or uk

[@nabilalvarez378]

REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA 🇮🇩

[@stephhopkinson1575]

This is underrated