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.

In 1801 the population of France was estimated to be just under 20 million people, the number of women was 14 million, whereas the number of men was 13.3 million. The gap then widens in 1821 to 0.9 million, which is most likely a result of the Napoleonic Wars, and it then narrows during the rest of the century, shrinking to just 0.04 million in 1866.

Throughout the time shown in the graph the numbers of men and women seem to follow similar trends, however the period between 1911 and 1946 shows how drastically the numbers of men were affected by both World Wars. Between 1911 and 1921 the number of men dropped by 0.8 million, whereas the number of women grew by 0.4 million. The male population does grow again during the interwar years, however both populations drop between 1931 and 1946 due to the Second World War, with the number of males decreasing by just under one million and the number of females by 0.4 million. This graph does not show how many died in France during the wars, as the numbers would also be influenced by the birth and natural death rate, but it does give an insight into the long term affects it had on the population.

From 1946 onwards the population of France does grow steadily, and at a much faster rate than it did in the 19th century. The population grows from just under 40 million in 1946, to 65.7 million in 2020, with 31.2 and 33.2 million men and women respectively. This increase in growth comes as a result of an increased fertility rate as well as an increased rate of migration into the country. While the difference in the number of men and women did decrease after the war, reaching its lowest point of 1.1 million in 1975, the gap has widened again to over two million in 2020.

Complete population data for France showing how many people live in France from 1960 to 2024

The total population in France was estimated at 68.4 million people in 2024, according to the latest census figures and projections from Trading Economics. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - France Population - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

By 1800, London had grown to be the largest city in Western Europe with just under one million inhabitants. Paris was now the second largest city, with over half a million people, and Naples was the third largest city with 450 thousand people. The only other cities with over two hundred thousand inhabitants at this time were Vienna, Amsterdam and Dublin. Another noticeable development is the inclusion of many more northern cities from a wider variety of countries. The dominance of cities from France and Mediterranean countries was no longer the case, and the dispersal of European populations in 1800 was much closer to how it is today, more than two centuries later.

In France, the crude birth rate in 1800 was 29.4 live births per thousand people, meaning that 2.9 percent of the population had been born in that year. In the first half of the nineteenth century France's crude birth rate dropped from it's highest recorded level of 29.4 in 1800, to 21.9 by 1850. In the second half of the 1800s the crude birth rate rose again, to 25.5 in 1875, as the Second Republic and Second Empire were established, which was a time of economic prosperity and the modernization of the country. From then until 1910 there was a gradual decline, until the First World War caused a huge decline, resulting in a record low crude birth rate of 13.3 by 1920 (the figures for individual years fell even lower than this). The figure then bounced back in the early 1920s, before then falling again until the Second World War. After the war, France experienced a baby boom, where the crude birth rate reached 22.2, before it dropped again until the 1980s, and since then it has declined slowly. The crude birth rate of France is expected to reach a new, record low of 11.2 in 2020.

In 1800, the population of modern day Algeria was estimated to be around 2.5 million people, and by the turn of the twentieth century it had almost doubled to five million. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, Algeria was a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, however an invasion by France in 1830 was the beginning of 130 years of French rule, and the development of Algeria's modern borders by 1875 (although northern Algeria was treated as an extension of the French metropole, with elected representatives in the Assembly). Although the rest of the century saw both medicinal and economic progress, French rule also dismantled traditional Algerian political and societal structures, as well as the oppression of Islam, particularly in rural areas. Algeria in the early 1900s The first few decades of the twentieth century saw increasing Algerian and Islamic influence in local government. Throughout both World Wars, Algerian soldiers played an integral part in the French military, and were responsible for Algeria's liberation from Nazi Germany, as well as decisive campaigns in Italy and France. Although Algerian troops often made up the first wave of soldiers to go into battle, they did not receive the same treatment or pay as their French counterparts, and Algerian veterans did not receive the same rights as French veterans until 2017. As Europe's control over its colonies weakened in the mid-1900s, independence movements in countries such as Algeria gained momentum, and the Algerian War of Independence was one of the most violent and arduous during this time. Although it began as guerilla warfare in 1952, a series of massacres and reprisals led to all-out war in 1955, between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the French-Algerian government. Up to one million Algerian's lost their lives in the war, and approximately twenty percent of the Muslim population became refugees. The war ended in March 1962, through the Evian Accords, and Algeria's independence was acknowledged on July 3, 1962. Independent Algeria In the aftermath of the war, there was a mass exodus of ethnic Europeans, as well as the systematic genocide of thousands of pro-French Algerians who remained in the country. Much of Algeria's agriculture had been destroyed, it's economy was left without structure as the majority of those in positions of power returned to Europe, and seventy percent of the workforce was unemployed. Relative peace followed and the country slowly modernized over the next three decades, however military rule failed to sufficiently stabilize the country, and the government's attempts to suppress Islam's influence in politics eventually led to a civil war in 1992. The civil war involved different factions with Islamic and pro-government agendas, and was very regionalized. The high number of massacres eventually led to splits within all paramilitary factions, which the government then capitalized on to re-establish control, and the war effectively ended in 2002. Since then, the military's control over Algerian politics has gradually decreased, and Algeria has become more peaceful and democratic (however they have not had an elected President since April 2019). Increased stability has also allowed the population to grow exponentially, and today it is almost 44 million people, double what it was in the mid-1980s.

1) Demographic traits These data are published data of age-specific mortality rates, age-specific lengths or weights, length and age at maturity, fecundity-length relationships, and egg size for 84 populations from 49 species of primarily commercial teleost fishes. The populations included are those for which all the life history traits under study have been estimated over a period shorter than 10 years. Traits were estimated from within the ten year window or averaged across it when data were available. Only studies in which reference population, sample size, techniques used for ageing fish and counting eggs, and models used for estimating mortality were reported are included. When only a size or age range was available, the midpoint between the extreme values was used. Raw data were converted into seven demographic traits: - Time-to-5%-survival (T.05): the time elapsed from sexual maturity until 95% of a cohort is dead. T.05 fwas estimated from an exponential mortality model, based on total mortality coefficients estimated by Virtual Population Analysis (age-structured model) in most cases or cohort analysis or catch curves. - Length-at-5%-survival (L.05). In fishes, adult size is difficult to measure because of their indeterminate growth. Adult size reported here is length at time-to-5%-survival. - Age at sexual maturity (Tm): median age at maturity was estimated directly from the data or by fitting a logistic curve to age-specific proportion mature data. When only an age range was available, the midpoint between minimum and maximum is reported. - Length at sexual maturity (Lm): median length at maturity was estimated as age at maturity. - Slope of the fecundity-length relationship (Fb): fish fecundity, defined as the number of eggs present in the ovaries immediately before spawning, is known to increase intraspecifically with the size of females. This increase is usually described by a power-law F = aLb. The exponent of this relationship, b (slope of the log-log fecundity-length regression), accounts for the increase in fecundity with size. - Fecundity at maturity (Fm): fecundity in the year of maturity was estimated from length at maturity, the fecundity-length relationship and the number of spawning bouts per year for batch spawners. - Egg volume (Egg): When information on egg size was unavailable in specific papers, values were borrowed from other studies, using the following criteria in the descending order: from the same period, the same population, the same species. In five species of Perciformes no estimate was available for any population, thus egg volume was estimated from other species of the same family.

2) Fishing pressure Three types of environments with low, moderate and high fishing pressure were defined. - To scale the pressure exerted by fishing to the natural population turn-over, it was expressed as the ratio of fishing mortality to natural mortality rates (F/M). Data were gathered from the literature together with demographic traits. Authors use the following methods to estimate natural mortality rates: intercept of a regression of total mortality on fishing effort, linear relationship known between estimates of natural mortality, growth parameters and the temperature, or multispecies models. Fishing mortality rates were estimated from Virtual Population Analysis or cohort analysis, or as the difference between total and natural mortality. Three levels of fishing pressure were defined: low fishing pressure (fishing mortality lower than natural mortality, F/M < 1), intermediate (1 <= F/M < 2) and high (F/M >= 2).

Between 1500 and 1800, London grew to be the largest city in Western Europe, with its population growing almost 22 times larger in this period. London would eventually overtake Constantinople as Europe's largest in the 1700s, before becoming the largest city in the world (ahead of Beijing) in the early-1800s.

The most populous cities in this period were the capitals of European empires, with Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna growing to become the largest cities, alongside the likes of Lisbon and Madrid in Iberia, and Naples or Venice in Italy. Many of northwestern Europe's largest cities in 1500 would eventually be overtaken by others not shown here, such as the port cities of Hamburg, Marseilles or Rotterdam, or more industrial cities such as Berlin, Birmingham, and Munich.

Areas (record manually from the État-major map from the Géoportail, IGN : http://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/) and populations (from Cassini.fr database, Ldh-EHESS : http://cassini.ehess.fr/cassini/fr/html/1_navigation.php) of urban settlements of the North of France during the early 19th century.This work takes place within a PhD in archaeology and geography - UMR 8504 Géographie-cités, Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne

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...

Cold-adapted species escape climate warming by latitudinal and/or altitudinal range shifts, and currently occur in Southern Europe in isolated mountain ranges within 'sky islands.

Here we studied the genetic structure of the Apollo butterfly in five such alpine islands (above 1000 m) in France, and infer its demographic history since the last interglacial, using single nucleotide polymorphisms (ddRADseq SNPs). The Auvergne and Alps populations show strong genetic differentiation but not alpine massifs, although separated by deep valleys. Combining three complementary demographic inference methods and species distribution models (SDMs) we show that the LIG period was highly defavorable for Apollo that probably survived in small population in the highest summits of Auvergne. The population shifted downslope and expanded eastward between LIG and LGM throughout the large climatically suitable Rhône valley between the glaciated summits of Auvergne and Alps. The Auvergne and Alps populations started diverging before the LGM but remained largely connected till the mid-Holocene. Population decline in Auvergne was more gradual but started before (~7 kya versus 800 ya), and was much stronger with current population size ten times lower than in the Alps. In the Alps, the low genetic structure and limited evidence for isolation by distance suggest a non-equilibrium metapopulation functioning. The core Apollo population experienced cycles of contraction-expansion with climate fluctuations with largely inter-connected populations over time according to a 'metapopulation-pulsar' functioning. This study demonstrates the power of combining demographic inferences and SDMs to determine past and future evolutionary trajectories of an endangered species at a regional scale.

Data from: Genetic structure and demographic history of house mice in Western Europe inferred using whole genome sequences

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s1rn8pkgh

• ALL_Europe_unfiltered_merged_noAlloption.vcf.gz

Unfiltered vcf of 59 wild-caught house mice from England, Scotland, Wales, Guernsey, northern France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain collected and deposited as prepared specimens in the University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology, and 24 wild-caught mice from southern France, Germany, and Iran from a previous publication (Harr et al. 2016). Sequences were aligned to the mouse reference genome (GRCm38/mm10, RefSeq: GCF_000001635.20). See Tables S1 and S2 of the associated manuscript for sample information, including sample locations and alignment statistics.

Sharing/Access information

The raw fastq files used to generate this data is accessible from:

• NCBI SRA BioProject ID PRJNA1050608

• ALL_Europe_83samples_filtered_merged_autosomes.recode.vcf.gz

Filtered...

Sex- and site-specific tests for population closure and model selection statistics based on turtle capture history data from Tour du Valat, France, 1997–2006.

§: relationship between history of stroke and gender.ns: not significant; *: p

It is estimated that Europe had an urbanization rate of approximately 8.5 percent in the year 1800. The Netherlands and Belgium were some of the most heavily urbanized regions, due the growth of port cities such as Rotterdam and Antwerp during Netherlands' empirical expansion, and the legacy of urbanization in the region, which stems from its wool and craft industries in medieval times. Additionally, the decline of their agricultural sectors and smaller territories contributed to a lower rural population. Scotland and England had also become more urban throughout the British Empire's growth, although the agricultural revolution of the previous two centuries, along with the first industrial revolution, then led to more rapid urbanization during the 19th century. In contrast, there was a large imbalance between the east and west of the continent; the two largest empires, Austria and Russia, had the lowest levels of urbanization in Europe in 1800, due to their vast territories, lower maritime presence, and lack of industrial development.

The state of Belgium owes its name to Julius Caesar, who used the name "Belgium" to refer to the region in his narrative "The Gallic Wars". After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region emerged as a cosmopolitan trading center, and was a collection of smaller duchies and states (such as Flanders and Brabant), before modern history saw control of the region pass between France, the Netherlands and (to a lesser extent) Spain. Modern day Belgium emerged in 1830 following the Belgian Revolution when it gained independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Throughout this time, the Belgian region was the setting of many conflicts between other European powers, which greatly affected the population development and demography of the area. From 1800 until the First world War, the population of Belgium grew steadily, and more than doubled in the nineteenth century. The World Wars Population growth stagnated in the 1910s, as a result of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. Belgium was one of the focal points of military action in the war, and many military personnel from other nations also lost their lives here during the conflict. Much of the Second World War also took place in Belgium, and although it remained neutral at the outbreak of both wars, it was invaded twice by Germany due to its strategic importance. Belgium suffered an estimated 88,000 fatalities during the war; with many further military fatalities from other nations also perishing in the region. Continuous growth From 1950 onwards, Belgium's population grows at a relatively consistent rate, to more than ten million people the year 2000. Since the turn of the millennium, a positive net migration rate and higher life expectancy has meant that Belgium's population has grown even faster rate than in the twentieth century. Today, Belgium has a very high standard of living, and the capital city of Brussels is home to the headquarters of many international institutions, particularly the European Union.

In 1938, the year before the outbreak of the Second world War, the countries with the largest populations were China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, although the United Kingdom had the largest overall population when it's colonies, dominions, and metropole are combined. Alongside France, these were the five Allied "Great Powers" that emerged victorious from the Second World War. The Axis Powers in the war were led by Germany and Japan in their respective theaters, and their smaller populations were decisive factors in their defeat. Manpower as a resource In the context of the Second World War, a country or territory's population played a vital role in its ability to wage war on such a large scale. Not only were armies able to call upon their people to fight in the war and replenish their forces, but war economies were also dependent on their workforce being able to meet the agricultural, manufacturing, and logistical demands of the war. For the Axis powers, invasions and the annexation of territories were often motivated by the fact that it granted access to valuable resources that would further their own war effort - millions of people living in occupied territories were then forced to gather these resources, or forcibly transported to work in manufacturing in other Axis territories. Similarly, colonial powers were able to use resources taken from their territories to supply their armies, however this often had devastating consequences for the regions from which food was redirected, contributing to numerous food shortages and famines across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Men from annexed or colonized territories were also used in the armies of the war's Great Powers, and in the Axis armies especially. This meant that soldiers often fought alongside their former-enemies. Aftermath The Second World War was the costliest in human history, resulting in the deaths of between 70 and 85 million people. Due to the turmoil and destruction of the war, accurate records for death tolls generally do not exist, therefore pre-war populations (in combination with other statistics), are used to estimate death tolls. The Soviet Union is believed to have lost the largest amount of people during the war, suffering approximately 24 million fatalities by 1945, followed by China at around 20 million people. The Soviet death toll is equal to approximately 14 percent of its pre-war population - the countries with the highest relative death tolls in the war are found in Eastern Europe, due to the intensity of the conflict and the systematic genocide committed in the region during the war.

In 1800, the region of present-day Syria had a population of approximately 1.25 million people. Growth was relatively slow during the 19th century, and the population reached just over two million by the time of the First World War in 1914. However, population would begin to grow more rapidly following the beginning of French occupation in 1920, and by the time Syria achieved independence from France in 1946, the population would be just over 3.2 million. Following the country’s independence, Syria would begin experiencing exponential growth, the result of significant economic growth from the country’s growing petroleum exports.

However, the 21st century would see a sharp reversal of Syria’s exponential population growth, with the beginning of the Syrian Civil War after widespread anti-government protests in 2011. After peaking at 21.4 million people in 2010, Syria’s population would see a rapid decline during the civil war, as widespread conflict, massacres, and destruction would lead to significant fatalities and a mass exodus of refugees from the country, with several million migrating to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, and another several hundred thousand ultimately migrating to the European Union. As a result, the population of the country has declined greatly, falling from over 21 million in 2010 to just under 17 million by 2018. However, as the fighting has gradually decreased in intensity and refugee rates have levelled off, the population of Syria has slowly began to grow again. In 2020, Syria is estimated to have a population of 17.5 million people.

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.