In 1800, the region of Germany was not a single, unified nation, but a collection of decentralized, independent states, bound together as part of the Holy Roman Empire. This empire was dissolved, however, in 1806, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Europe, and the German Confederation was established in 1815. Napoleonic reforms led to the abolition of serfdom, extension of voting rights to property-owners, and an overall increase in living standards. The population grew throughout the remainder of the century, as improvements in sanitation and medicine (namely, mandatory vaccination policies) saw child mortality rates fall in later decades. As Germany industrialized and the economy grew, so too did the argument for nationhood; calls for pan-Germanism (the unification of all German-speaking lands) grew more popular among the lower classes in the mid-1800s, especially following the revolutions of 1948-49. In contrast, industrialization and poor harvests also saw high unemployment in rural regions, which led to waves of mass migration, particularly to the U.S.. In 1886, the Austro-Prussian War united northern Germany under a new Confederation, while the remaining German states (excluding Austria and Switzerland) joined following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; this established the German Empire, under the Prussian leadership of Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. 1871 to 1945 - Unification to the Second World War The first decades of unification saw Germany rise to become one of Europe's strongest and most advanced nations, and challenge other world powers on an international scale, establishing colonies in Africa and the Pacific. These endeavors were cut short, however, when the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent was assassinated in Sarajevo; Germany promised a "blank check" of support for Austria's retaliation, who subsequently declared war on Serbia and set the First World War in motion. Viewed as the strongest of the Central Powers, Germany mobilized over 11 million men throughout the war, and its army fought in all theaters. As the war progressed, both the military and civilian populations grew increasingly weakened due to malnutrition, as Germany's resources became stretched. By the war's end in 1918, Germany suffered over 2 million civilian and military deaths due to conflict, and several hundred thousand more during the accompanying influenza pandemic. Mass displacement and the restructuring of Europe's borders through the Treaty of Versailles saw the population drop by several million more.

Reparations and economic mismanagement also financially crippled Germany and led to bitter indignation among many Germans in the interwar period; something that was exploited by Adolf Hitler on his rise to power. Reckless printing of money caused hyperinflation in 1923, when the currency became so worthless that basic items were priced at trillions of Marks; the introduction of the Rentenmark then stabilized the economy before the Great Depression of 1929 sent it back into dramatic decline. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi government disregarded the Treaty of Versailles' restrictions and Germany rose once more to become an emerging superpower. Hitler's desire for territorial expansion into eastern Europe and the creation of an ethnically-homogenous German empire then led to the invasion of Poland in 1939, which is considered the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Again, almost every aspect of German life contributed to the war effort, and more than 13 million men were mobilized. After six years of war, and over seven million German deaths, the Axis powers were defeated and Germany was divided into four zones administered by France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.. Mass displacement, shifting borders, and the relocation of peoples based on ethnicity also greatly affected the population during this time. 1945 to 2020 - Partition and Reunification In the late 1940s, cold war tensions led to two distinct states emerging in Germany; the Soviet-controlled east became the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), and the three western zones merged to form the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Additionally, Berlin was split in a similar fashion, although its location deep inside DDR territory created series of problems and opportunities for the those on either side. Life quickly changed depending on which side of the border one lived. Within a decade, rapid economic recovery saw West Germany become western Europe's strongest economy and a key international player. In the east, living standards were much lower, although unemployment was almost non-existent; internationally, East Germany was the strongest economy in the Eastern Bloc (after the USSR), though it eventually fell behind the West by the 1970s. The restriction of movement between the two states also led to labor shortages in t...

During the eighteenth century, it is estimated that France's population grew by roughly fifty percent, from 19.7 million in 1700, to 29 million by 1800. In France itself, the 1700s are remembered for the end of King Louis XIV's reign in 1715, the Age of Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. During this century, the scientific and ideological advances made in France and across Europe challenged the leadership structures of the time, and questioned the relationship between monarchial, religious and political institutions and their subjects. France was arguably the most powerful nation in the world in these early years, with the second largest population in Europe (after Russia); however, this century was defined by a number of costly, large-scale conflicts across Europe and in the new North American theater, which saw the loss of most overseas territories (particularly in North America) and almost bankrupted the French crown. A combination of regressive taxation, food shortages and enlightenment ideologies ultimately culminated in the French Revolution in 1789, which brought an end to the Ancien Régime, and set in motion a period of self-actualization.

War and peace

After a volatile and tumultuous decade, in which tens of thousands were executed by the state (most infamously: guillotined), relative stability was restored within France as Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, and the policies of the revolution became enforced. Beyond France's borders, the country was involved in a series of large scale wars for two almost decades, and the First French Empire eventually covered half of Europe by 1812. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated outright, the empire was dissolved, and the monarchy was restored to France; nonetheless, a large number of revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms remained in effect afterwards, and the ideas had a long-term impact across the globe. France experienced a century of comparative peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars; there were some notable uprisings and conflicts, and the monarchy was abolished yet again, but nothing on the scale of what had preceded or what was to follow. A new overseas colonial empire was also established in the late 1800s, particularly across Africa and Southeast Asia. Through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, France had the second largest population in Europe (after Russia), however political instability and the economic prioritization of Paris meant that the entire country did not urbanize or industrialize at the same rate as the other European powers. Because of this, Germany and Britain entered the twentieth century with larger populations, and other regions, such as Austria or Belgium, had overtaken France in terms of industrialization; the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War was also a major contributor to this.

World Wars and contemporary France

Coming into the 1900s, France had a population of approximately forty million people (officially 38 million* due to to territorial changes), and there was relatively little growth in the first half of the century. France was comparatively unprepared for a large scale war, however it became one of the most active theaters of the First World War when Germany invaded via Belgium in 1914, with the ability to mobilize over eight million men. By the war's end in 1918, France had lost almost 1.4 million in the conflict, and approximately 300,000 in the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed. Germany invaded France again during the Second World War, and occupied the country from 1940, until the Allied counter-invasion liberated the country during the summer of 1944. France lost around 600,000 people in the course of the war, over half of which were civilians. Following the war's end, the country experienced a baby boom, and the population grew by approximately twenty million people in the next fifty years (compared to just one million in the previous fifty years). Since the 1950s, France's economy quickly grew to be one of the strongest in the world, despite losing the vast majority of its overseas colonial empire by the 1970s. A wave of migration, especially from these former colonies, has greatly contributed to the growth and diversity of France's population today, which stands at over 65 million people in 2020.

Dataset title: Deaths from all causes in Western Europe by month, 1914-1918 Related publication: More, A. F. et al. (2020). The impact of a six-year climate anomaly on the ‘Spanish Flu’ Pandemic and WWI. GeoHealth, American Geophysical Union. Figures 2 and 3. Dataset source: Bunle, H. (1954). Le Mouvement naturel de la population dans le monde de 1906 à 1936. Paris, Institut national d’études démographiques, pp. 432-438. N.B. Please cite the original source if you use this dataset. N.B. Please note that Bunle did not publish mortality statistics for Belgium, Bulgaria, and several other countries for the period 1914-20 due to his inability to find reliable sources, as indicated in his footnotes and on p. 12. This dataset includes countries of western Europe with the most reliable data. Units: Thousands of deaths. Each monthly figure should be multiplied by 1000 to obtain the total deaths for a specific month. Each year is divided in 12 monthly entries, with decimals increasing by 0.083 (1/12) for each month.

In 1800, the population of Spain was approximately 14.7 million. This figure would rise consistently throughout the 19th century, and early 20th century. The population growth rate was set to increase in the mid-1900s, but this was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, which would claim around half a million lives between 1936 and 1939. In spite of the war, the Spanish population continued to grow throughout these years, and reached 28 million by the middle of the century. Between the 1950s and 1970s, Spain observed a significant increase in its population growth, facilitated by the baby boom that followed the Second World War (as in most of Western Europe) as well as general medical improvements and increased life expectancy.

Beginning in the 1980s, Spain would begin a demographic transition marked by a dramatic drop in the fertility rate of the country, resulting in the population only growing by two million between the mid-1980s and 2000 (compared to an increase of two million every five or six years beforehand). There was a sharp rise in Spain’s population from 2000 to 2008, as strong economic growth would be accompanied by a dramatic surge in immigration to the country. This would plateau at just over 46 million in 2008 however, as the Great Recession took its toll on the country’s economy, and in 2020, Spain is estimated to have a population of approximately 46.8 million, which is the sixth-largest in Europe.

Hungary: Transleithania was the Hungarian-ruled section of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which controlled much of Central Europe from 1867 to 1918. This graphic shows the total population of Hungary: Transleithania from 1850 until 1910, just before the outbreak of World War I. As we can see from the graph, the population grows rather gradually throughout this 60 year period. The population begins at 13.2 million people in 1850, and then rises gradually to 20.9 million in 1910, just 4 years before the empire declares war on Serbia, which would develop into the First World War. As mentioned, the population rises gradually, although it does slow quite noticeably between 1869 and 1880, this is because of the data collecting methods of the time, as the earlier entries did not include military personnel. This also influences the data relating to gender, as the balance between the number of men and women fluctuates throughout this time. From 1880 onwards, the population of Transleithania enjoyed healthy growth due to increased industrialization and standard of living.

In the past four centuries, the population of the Thirteen Colonies and United States of America has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 346 million in 2025. While the fertility rate has now dropped well below replacement level, and the population is on track to go into a natural decline in the 2040s, projected high net immigration rates mean the population will continue growing well into the next century, crossing the 400 million mark in the 2070s. Indigenous population Early population figures for the Thirteen Colonies and United States come with certain caveats. Official records excluded the indigenous population, and they generally remained excluded until the late 1800s. In 1500, in the first decade of European colonization of the Americas, the native population living within the modern U.S. borders was believed to be around 1.9 million people. The spread of Old World diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, to biologically defenseless populations in the New World then wreaked havoc across the continent, often wiping out large portions of the population in areas that had not yet made contact with Europeans. By the time of Jamestown's founding in 1607, it is believed the native population within current U.S. borders had dropped by almost 60 percent. As the U.S. expanded, indigenous populations were largely still excluded from population figures as they were driven westward, however taxpaying Natives were included in the census from 1870 to 1890, before all were included thereafter. It should be noted that estimates for indigenous populations in the Americas vary significantly by source and time period. Migration and expansion fuels population growth The arrival of European settlers and African slaves was the key driver of population growth in North America in the 17th century. Settlers from Britain were the dominant group in the Thirteen Colonies, before settlers from elsewhere in Europe, particularly Germany and Ireland, made a large impact in the mid-19th century. By the end of the 19th century, improvements in transport technology and increasing economic opportunities saw migration to the United States increase further, particularly from southern and Eastern Europe, and in the first decade of the 1900s the number of migrants to the U.S. exceeded one million people in some years. It is also estimated that almost 400,000 African slaves were transported directly across the Atlantic to mainland North America between 1500 and 1866 (although the importation of slaves was abolished in 1808). Blacks made up a much larger share of the population before slavery's abolition. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily since 1900, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. Since WWII, the U.S. has established itself as the world's foremost superpower, with the world's largest economy, and most powerful military. This growth in prosperity has been accompanied by increases in living standards, particularly through medical advances, infrastructure improvements, clean water accessibility. These have all contributed to higher infant and child survival rates, as well as an increase in life expectancy (doubling from roughly 40 to 80 years in the past 150 years), which have also played a large part in population growth. As fertility rates decline and increases in life expectancy slows, migration remains the largest factor in population growth. Since the 1960s, Latin America has now become the most common origin for migrants in the U.S., while immigration rates from Asia have also increased significantly. It remains to be seen how immigration restrictions of the current administration affect long-term population projections for the United States.

Throughout the 19th century, what we know today as Poland was not a united, independent country; apart from a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars, Polish land was split between the Austro-Hungarian, Prussian (later German) and Russian empires. During the 1800s, the population of Poland grew steadily, from approximately nine million people in 1800 to almost 25 million in 1900; throughout this time, the Polish people and their culture were oppressed by their respective rulers, and cultural suppression intensified following a number of uprisings in the various territories. Following the outbreak of the First World War, it is estimated that almost 3.4 million men from Poland served in the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian armies, with a further 300,000 drafted for forced labor by the German authorities. Several hundred thousand were forcibly resettled in the region during the course of the war, as Poland was one of the most active areas of the conflict. For these reasons, among others, it is difficult to assess the extent of Poland's military and civilian fatalities during the war, with most reliable estimates somewhere between 640,000 and 1.1 million deaths. In the context of present-day Poland, it is estimated that the population fell by two million people in the 1910s, although some of this was also due to the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed in the wake of the war.

Poland 1918-1945

After more than a century of foreign rule, an independent Polish state was established by the Allied Powers in 1918, although it's borders were considerably different to today's, and were extended by a number of additional conflicts. The most significant of these border conflicts was the Polish-Soviet War in 1919-1920, which saw well over 100,000 deaths, and victory helped Poland to emerge as the Soviet Union's largest political and military rival in Eastern Europe during the inter-war period. Economically, Poland struggled to compete with Europe's other powers during this time, due to its lack of industrialization and infrastructure, and the global Great Depression of the 1930s exacerbated this further. Political corruption and instability was also rife in these two decades, and Poland's leadership failed to prepare the nation for the Second World War. Poland had prioritized its eastern defenses, and some had assumed that Germany's Nazi regime would see Poland as an ally due to their shared rivalry with the Soviet Union, but this was not the case. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, in the first act of the War, and the Soviet Union launched a counter invasion on September 17; Germany and the Soviet Union had secretly agreed to do this with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, and had succeeded in taking the country by September's end. When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 it took complete control of Poland, which continued to be the staging ground for much of the fighting between these nations. It has proven difficult to calculate the total number of Polish fatalities during the war, for a variety of reasons, however most historians have come to believe that the figure is around six million fatalities, which equated to almost one fifth of the entire pre-war population; the total population dropped by four million throughout the 1940s. The majority of these deaths took place during the Holocaust, which saw the Nazi regime commit an ethnic genocide of up to three million Polish Jews, and as many as 2.8 million non-Jewish Poles; these figures do not include the large number of victims from other countries who died after being forcefully relocated to concentration camps in Poland.

Post-war Poland

The immediate aftermath of the war was also extremely unorganized and chaotic, as millions were forcefully relocated from or to the region, in an attempt to create an ethnically homogenized state, and thousands were executed during this process. A communist government was quickly established by the Soviet Union, and socialist social and economic policies were gradually implemented over the next decade, as well as the rebuilding, modernization and education of the country. In the next few decades, particularly in the 1980s, the Catholic Church, student groups and trade unions (as part of the Solidarity movement) gradually began to challenge the government, weakening the communist party's control over the nation (although it did impose martial law and imprison political opponent throughout the early-1980s). Increasing civil unrest and the weakening of Soviet influence saw communism in Poland come to an end in the elections of 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poland's population growth stagnated at around 38.5 million people, before gradually decreasing since the turn of the millennium, to 37.8 million people in 2020. This decline was mostly due to a negative migration rate, as Polish workers could now travel more freely to Western Europea...

The influenza pandemic of 1918, known as the Spanish Flu, was one of the deadliest and widespread pandemics in human history. The scale of the outbreak, as well as limitations in technology, medicine and communication, create difficulties when trying to uncover accurate figures relating to the pandemic. Estimates suggest that the virus, known as the H1N1 influenza virus, infected more than one quarter of the global population, which equated to approximately 500 million people in 1920. It was responsible for roughly 25 million fatalities, although some projections suggest that it could have caused double this number of deaths. The exact origins of this strain of influenza remain unclear to this day, however it was first noticed in Western Europe in the latter stages of the First World War. Wartime censorship in Europe meant that the severity of the pandemic was under-reported, while news outlets in neutral Spain were free to report openly about the impact of the virus; this gave the illusion that the virus was particularly strong in Spain, giving way to the term "Spanish Flu".

Effects of the virus

By late summer 1918, the pandemic had spread across the entire continent, and the H1N1 virus had mutated into a deadlier strain that weakened the infected's immune system more than traditional influenzas. Some studies suggest that, in contrast to these traditional influenza viruses, having a stronger immune system was actually a liability in the case of the H1N1 virus as it triggered what is known as a "cytokine storm". This is where white blood cells release proteins called cytokines, which signal the body to attack the virus, in turn releasing more white blood cells which release more cytokines. This cycle over-works and greatly weakens the immune system, often giving way to other infections; most commonly pneumonia in the case of the Spanish Flu. For this reason, the Spanish Flu had an uncommonly high fatality rate among young adults, who are traditionally the healthiest group in society. Some theories for the disproportionate death-rate among young adults suggest that the elderly's immune systems benefitted from exposure to earlier influenza pandemics, such as the "Asiatic/Russian Flu" pandemic of 1889.

Decrease in life expectancy As the war in Europe came to an end, soldiers returning home brought the disease to all corners of the world, and the pandemic reached global proportions. Isolated and under-developed nations were especially vulnerable; particularly in Samoa, where almost one quarter of the population died within two months and life expectancy fell to just barely over one year for those born in 1918; this was due to the arrival of a passenger ship from New Zealand in November 1918, where the infected passengers were not quarantined on board, allowing the disease to spread rapidly. Other areas where life expectancy dropped below ten years for those born in 1918 were present-day Afghanistan, the Congo, Fiji, Guatemala, Kenya, Micronesia, Serbia, Tonga and Uganda. The British Raj, now Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, saw more fatalities than any other region, with as many as five percent of the entire population perishing as a result of the pandemic. The pandemic also had a high fatality rate among pregnant women and infants, and greatly impacted infant mortality rates across the world. There were several waves of the pandemic until late 1920, although they decreased in severity as time progressed, and none were as fatal as the outbreak in 1918. A new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus did re-emerge in 2009, and was colloquially known as "Swine Flu"; thankfully it had a much lower fatality rate due to medical advancements across the twentieth century.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the area of modern-day Italy, at the time a collection of various states and kingdoms, was estimated to have a population of nineteen million, a figure which would grow steadily throughout the century, and by the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the population would rise to just over 26 million.

Italy’s population would see its first major disruption during the First World War, as Italy would join the Allied Forces in their fight against Austria-Hungary and Germany. In the First World War, Italy’s population would largely stagnate at 36 million, only climbing again following the end of the war in 1920. While Italy would also play a prominent role in the Second World War, as the National Fascist Party-led country would fight alongside Germany against the Allies, Italian fatalities from the war would not represent a significant percentage of Italy’s population compared to other European countries in the conflict. As a result, Italy would exit the Second World War with a population of just over 45 million.

From this point onwards the Italian economy started to recover from the war, and eventually boomed, leading to increased employment and standards of living, which facilitated steady population growth until the mid-1980s, when falling fertility and birth rates would cause growth to largely cease. From this point onward, the Italian population would remain at just over 57 million, until the 2000s when it began growing again due to an influx of migrants, peaking in 2017 at just over 60 million people. In the late 2010s, however, the Italian population began declining again, as immigration slowed and the economy weakened. As a result, in 2020, Italy is estimated to have fallen to a population of 59 million.

Bulgaria, with the help of the Russian Empire, achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. In the decades before independence, Bulgaria's population had remained between 2.2 and 2.8 million people, and growth was much slower then the following century. Although most at the time assumed that it would become a Russian ally, Bulgaria defied the expectations and aligned itself with the western powers, and developed into a modern European state by the turn in the late 1800s. Bulgaria at war In the early twentieth century Bulgaria was involved in both World Wars, as well as two Balkan Wars. The Balkan states were unhappy with the borders assigned to them by the western powers, and instead wanted to re-draw them based on the dispersal of ethnic groups. This led to the first Balkan War in 1912, which saw Bulgaria fight alongside Greece and Serbia against the Ottomans. Bulgaria fought the second Balkan War on all sides, this time against Greece, Serbia, Romania and the Ottomans, as the dispute over borders continued. Bulgaria was defeated this time, and sustained heavy casualties, amassing in 58 thousand fatalities and over 100 thousand wounded in the two wars.

In the First World War, Bulgaria remained neutral at first, in order to recover from the previous wars, but then aligned itself with the Central powers in 1915, and played a vital role in maintaining their control in the Balkans. While Bulgaria was initially successful, its allies weakened as the war progressed, and then Bulgaria eventually succumbed to Allied forces and surrendered in 1918, with almost 200 thousand Bulgarians dying as a result of the war. The interwar years was a period of political and economic turmoil, and when control was re-established, Bulgaria was then able to maintain it's neutrality throughout most of the Second World War, (although there was some conflict and bombings in certain areas). Rise and fall of communism After the war, Bulgaria became a communist state, and life became harsh for the civil population there until the late 1950s when the standard of living rose again. In the late 1980s, like many Eastern European countries, Bulgaria experienced economic decline as the communist system began to collapse. Political failures also contributed to this, and approximately 300 thousand Bulgarian Turks migrated to Turkey, greatly weakening the agricultural economy. This trend of mass migration abroad continued after the fall of the iron curtain, as well as the rise of unemployment. Bulgaria reached it's peak population size in 1985 at 8.98 million inhabitants, but then the number decreases each year, and is expected to be 6.94 million in 2020. This drop in population size has been attributed to the economic collapse at the end of communism in Eastern Europe, causing many to leave the country in search of work elsewhere. Bulgaria also has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with 8.7 births per 1,000 people per year (in 2018).

It is presumed that the first humans migrated from Siberia to North America approximately twelve thousand years ago, where they then moved southwards to warmer lands. It was not until many centuries later that humans returned to the north and began to settle regions that are now part of Canada. Despite a few short-lived Viking settlements on Newfoundland around the turn of the first millennium CE, the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), became the first European to explore the coast of North America in the late 1400s. The French and British crowns both made claims to areas of Canada throughout the sixteenth century, but real colonization and settlement did not begin until the early seventeenth century. Over the next 150 years, France and Britain competed to take control of the booming fur and fishing trade, and to expand their overseas empires. In the Seven Year's War, Britain eventually defeated the French colonists in North America, through superior numbers and a stronger agriculture resources in the southern colonies, and the outcome of the war saw France cede practically all of it's colonies in North America to the British.

Increased migration and declining native populations

The early 1800s saw a large influx of migrants into Canada, with the Irish Potato Famine bringing the first wave of mass-migration to the country, with further migration coming from Scandinavia and Northern Europe. It is estimated that the region received just shy of one million migrants from the British Isles alone, between 1815 and 1850, which helped the population grow to 2.5 million in the mid-1800s and 5.5 million in 1900. It is also estimated that infectious diseases killed around 25 to 33 percent of all Europeans who migrated to Canada before 1891, and around a third of the Canadian population is estimated to have emigrated southwards to the United States in the 1871-1896 period. From the time of European colonization until the mid-nineteenth century, the native population of Canada dropped from roughly 500,000 (some estimates put it as high as two million) to just over 100,000; this was due to a mixture of disease, starvation and warfare, instigated by European migration to the region. The native population was generally segregated and oppressed until the second half of the 1900s; Native Canadians were given the vote in 1960, and, despite their complicated and difficult history, the Canadian government has made significant progress in trying to include indigenous cultures in the country's national identity in recent years. As of 2020, Indigenous Canadians make up more than five percent of the total Canadian population, and a higher birth rate means that this share of the population is expected to grow in the coming decades.

Independence and modern Canada

Canadian independence was finally acknowledged in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster, putting it on equal terms with the United Kingdom within the Commonwealth; virtually granting independence and sovereignty until the Canada Act of 1982 formalized it. Over the past century, Canada has had a relatively stable political system and economy (although it was hit particularly badly by the Wall Street Crash of 1929). Canada entered the First World War with Britain, and as an independent Allied Power in the Second World War; Canadian forces played pivotal roles in a number of campaigns, notably Canada's Hundred Days in WWI, and the country lost more than 100,000 men across both conflicts. The economy boomed in the aftermath of the Second World War, and a stream of socially democratic programs such as universal health care and the Canadian pension plan were introduced, which contributed to a rise in the standard of living. The post war period also saw various territories deciding to join Canada, with Newfoundland joining in 1949, and Nunavut in 1999. Today Canada is among the most highly ranked in countries in terms of civil liberties, quality of life and economic growth. It promotes and welcomes immigrants from all over the world and, as a result, it has one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural populations of any country in the world. As of 2020, Canada's population stands at around 38 million people, and continues to grow due to high migration levels and life expectancy, and a steady birth rate.

In 1800, the region of present-day Turkey had a population of approximately 9.8 million. Turkey’s population would grow steadily throughout the 1800s, growing to 14 million by the turn of the century. During this time, Turkey was the center of the Ottoman Empire, which also covered much of the Balkans, Arabia, and the African coast from Libya to Somalia. In the early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire's dissolution period began, characterized by political instability and a series of military defeats and coups. The empire was one of the defeated Central Powers of the First World War, in which it suffered approximately three million total fatalities. It is estimated that the majority of these deaths did not come directly from the war, but as a result of the government-orchestrated mass expulsion and genocide of non-Turks from within the Turkish borders, specifically Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds; many ethnic Turks were simultaneously expelled from neighboring countries, namely Greece, which makes these events less-visible when examining annual data, although Turkey's total population did drop by one million between 1914 and 1924.

The Republic of Turkey Following the end of the Turkish War of Independence in 1923, and the establishment of the republic of Turkey, the population would begin to recover, tripling from just around 21 million in 1950 to over 63 million by the turn of the century. The new republic, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, introduced sweeping, progressive reforms that modernized the country, particularly its healthcare and education systems. Turkey remained neutral throughout the Second World War, and became a member of NATO during the Cold War. The second half of the 1900s was marked with intermittent periods of political instability, and a number of military conflicts (namely, in Cyprus and Kurdistan). In spite of this, Turkey has generally been considered a developed country for most of this time, although its life expectancy and infant mortality rates have often been more in line with developing nations.

Modern Turkey In the past decade, Turkey's population growth has continued its rapid growth; while birth rates have declined, the mass migration of refugees to the country fleeing the Syrian Civil War has seen the population growth ramain high. This influx of refugees was seen as a stepping stone in Turkey's accession to the European Union, with whom it has been negotiating a potential membership since 2005. Accession to the EU would provide huge economic benefits to Turkey, however, political developments in recent years (particularly the 2016 coup) have seen these negotiations stall, as the EU has accused the Turkish government of committing widespread human rights violations, such as torture, political imprisonment and censorship of free speech. In 2020, Turkey's population is estimated to be over 84 million people, and is expected to exceed 100 million in the next two decades.

In 1800, the population of Latvia was approximately 591,000, a number which would grow steadily throughout the 19th century as reforms in agrarian law and steady improvements in standards of living and production allowed for a significant expansion in population. However, the population of Latvia would peak at just under 2.5 million in 1909, before falling sharply in the First World War. As the battlefield between the German and Russian Empires, Latvia and the other Baltic states were the site of widespread combat, attacks on civilians, and scorched earth campaigns, devastating the country. Even many of those who did not lose their lives in the war were forced to evacuate under orders from the Russian Empire, leading hundreds of thousands to flea eastward. As a result, by the end of the First World War, the population of Latvia would fall to approximately 1.8 million, and would not recover to pre-war population levels until the 1980s.

Following the end of the First World War, Latvia's population would remain largely stagnant at this level, rising slightly before falling back down in the Second World War. However, population growth would increase rapidly in the post-war years, as rapid industrialization by the Soviet Union and sharp decreases in mortality as mass immunization and vaccination would allow for the population to return to pre-World War levels by the 1980s. Latvia's population would begin to decline rapidly with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, as significant unemployment and economic turmoil would lead large numbers of Latvians to migrate west to the European Union in search of work, particularly so following Latvia's inclusion into the Schengen Area in 2003. As a result, in 2020, Latvia is estimated to have a population of just under 1.9 million.

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Hungary was approximately 3.3 million, a figure which would steadily rise in the first two decades of the 19th century, as modernization driven by rising exports of cash crops resulting from the ongoing Napoleonic wars would see Hungary become a major exporter in Europe. The slowing in population growth in the 1920s can be attributed in part to the economic recession which hit Hungary in the years following Napoleon defeat, as a grain prices collapsed, and economic hardship intensified in the country. Hungary would see a small increase in population growth in the 1860s, as the country would merge with the Austria to form Austria-Hungary in 1967. As industrialization would continue to accelerate in Hungary, the country’s population rise even further, reaching just over seven million by 1900.

While Hungary had enjoyed largely uninterrupted growth throughout the 19th century, the first half of the 20th century would see several major disruptions to Hungary’s population growth. Growth would slow greatly in the First World War, as Austria-Hungary would find itself one of the largest combatants in the conflict, losing an estimated 1.8 to 2 million people to the war. Hungary’s population would flatline entirely in the 1940s, as the country would see extensive military losses in the country’s invasion of the Soviet Union alongside Germany, and further loss of civilian life in the German occupation of the country and subsequent deportation and mass-murder of several hundred thousand Hungarian Jews. As a result, Hungary’s population would remain stagnant at just over nine million until the early 1950s.

After remaining stagnant for over a decade, Hungary’s population would spike greatly in the early 1950s, as a combination of a tax on childlessness and strict contraception restrictions implemented by then-Minister of Public Welfare Anna Ratkó would lead to a dramatic expansion in births, causing Hungary’s population to rise by over half a million in just five years. However, this spike would prove only temporary, as the death of Stalin in 1953 and subsequent resignation of much of the Stalinist regime in Hungary would see an end to the pro-natalist policies driving the spike. From 1980 onward, however, Hungary’s population would begin to steadily decline, as a sharp reduction in birth rates, combined with a trend of anti-immigrant policies by the Hungarian government, both before and after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, has led Hungary’s population to fall steadily from its 10.8 million peak in 1980, and in 2020, Hungary is estimated to have a population of just over nine and a half million.

In 1800, the population of the region making up present-day Croatia was just over 1.2 million. Croatia's population grew relatively consistently throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, despite the region suffering around 200,000 fatalities in each of the World Wars. The lack of clearly defined boundaries, mass displacement and general disorganization have made it very difficult for historians to estimate the total number of fatalities suffered by Croatia and by ethnic Croats in this time; additionally, the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia at the time committed a number of atrocities against one another, which has exacerbated this.

In spite of these events, the population of Croatia would continue to grow steadily until the early 1990s, when it was one of six parts of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. In the wake of communism's demise in Southern Europe in the late 20th century, Croatia claimed its sovereignty in 1991, which set in motion the Croatian War of Independence with Serbia. War was waged for four years, and saw the deaths of more than 20,000 people, while several hundred thousand were displaced. In the quarter century since the war's end, Croatia has emerged as a high-income, developing country, with a booming tourism and hospitality industry. However the population has continued to drop as a result of declining birth rates, and large-scale economic migration (particularly influenced by the financial crisis of 2008 and Croatia's accession to the European Union in 2013).