The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, and reach eight billion in 2023, and will peak at almost 11 billion by the end of the century. Although it took thousands of years to reach one billion people, it did so at the beginning of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition; from this point onwards, population growth has skyrocketed, and since the 1960s the population has increased by one billion people every 12 to 15 years. The demographic transition sees a sharp drop in mortality due to factors such as vaccination, sanitation, and improved food supply; the population boom that follows is due to increased survival rates among children and higher life expectancy among the general population; and fertility then drops in response to this population growth. Regional differences The demographic transition is a global phenomenon, but it has taken place at different times across the world. The industrialized countries of Europe and North America were the first to go through this process, followed by some states in the Western Pacific. Latin America's population then began growing at the turn of the 20th century, but the most significant period of global population growth occurred as Asia progressed in the late-1900s. As of the early 21st century, almost two thirds of the world's population live in Asia, although this is set to change significantly in the coming decades. Future growth The growth of Africa's population, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will have the largest impact on global demographics in this century. From 2000 to 2100, it is expected that Africa's population will have increased by a factor of almost five. It overtook Europe in size in the late 1990s, and overtook the Americas a decade later. In contrast to Africa, Europe's population is now in decline, as birth rates are consistently below death rates in many countries, especially in the south and east, resulting in natural population decline. Similarly, the population of the Americas and Asia are expected to go into decline in the second half of this century, and only Oceania's population will still be growing alongside Africa. By 2100, the world's population will have over three billion more than today, with the vast majority of this concentrated in Africa. Demographers predict that climate change is exacerbating many of the challenges that currently hinder progress in Africa, such as political and food instability; if Africa's transition is prolonged, then it may result in further population growth that would place a strain on the region's resources, however, curbing this growth earlier would alleviate some of the pressure created by climate change.

The earliest point where scientists can make reasonable estimates for the population of global regions is around 10,000 years before the Common Era (or 12,000 years ago). Estimates suggest that Asia has consistently been the most populated continent, and the least populated continent has generally been Oceania (although it was more heavily populated than areas such as North America in very early years). Population growth was very slow, but an increase can be observed between most of the given time periods. There were, however, dips in population due to pandemics, the most notable of these being the impact of plague in Eurasia in the 14th century, and the impact of European contact with the indigenous populations of the Americas after 1492, where it took almost four centuries for the population of Latin America to return to its pre-1500 level. The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, which also coincided with a spike in population growth, due to the onset of the demographic transition. This wave of growth first spread across the most industrially developed countries in the 19th century, and the correlation between demographic development and industrial or economic maturity continued until today, with Africa being the final major region to begin its transition in the late-1900s.

In 1800, the population of modern day area of South Africa was approximately 1.44 million. Like most of the continent, the population of South Africa increased gradually through most of the 19th century, reaching 4.71 million by the start of the 20th century. Beginning in the 20th century however, the population would begin to rise exponentially as industrialization, advances in medicine and health, and the spread of vaccinations allowed for lower child mortality rates and increased life expectancy among adults. The population of South Africa would continue to rise exponentially for almost a century, going from just under 5 million at the start of the 1900s to almost 45 million by 2000. However, since the early 2000s, South Africa’s population growth has slowed, the result of a significant decrease in fertility rates in the country in recent years. In 2020, South Africa is estimated to have a population of 59.31 million.

Between 1800 and 2021, the total population of each continent experienced consistent growth, however as growth rates varied by region, population distribution has fluctuated. In the early 19th century, almost 70 percent of the world's population lived in Asia, while fewer than 10 percent lived in Africa. By the end of this century, it is believed that Asia's share will fall to roughly 45 percent, while Africa's will be on course to reach 40 percent. 19th and 20th centuries Fewer than 2.5 percent of the world's population lived in the Americas in 1800, however the demographic transition, along with waves of migration, would see this share rise to almost 10 percent a century later, peaking at almost 14 percent in the 1960s. Europe's share of the global population also grew in the 19th century, to roughly a quarter in 1900, but fell thereafter and saw the largest relative decline during the 20th century. Asia, which has consistently been the world's most populous continent, saw its population share drop by the mid-1900s, but it has been around 60 percent since the 1970s. It is important to note that the world population has grown from approximately one to eight billion people between 1800 and the 2020s, and that declines in population distribution before 2020 have resulted from different growth rates across the continents. 21st century Africa's population share remained fairly constant throughout this time, fluctuating between 7.5 and 10 percent until the late-1900s, but it is set to see the largest change over the 21st century. As Europe's total population is now falling, and it is estimated that the total populations of Asia and the Americas will fall by the 2050s and 2070s respectively, rapid population growth in Africa will see a significant shift in population distribution. Africa's population is predicted to grow from 1.3 to 3.9 billion people over the next eight decades, and its share of the total population will rise to almost 40 percent. The only other continent whose population will still be growing at this time will be Oceania, although its share of the total population has never been more than 0.7 percent.

There were almost 700 thousand slaves in the US in 1790, which equated to approximately 18 percent of the total population, or roughly one in every six people. By 1860, the final census taken before the American Civil War, there were four million slaves in the South, compared with less than 0.5 million free African Americans in all of the US. Of the 4.4 million African Americans in the US before the war, almost four million of these people were held as slaves; meaning that for all African Americans living in the US in 1860, there was an 89 percent* chance that they lived in slavery. A brief history Trans-Atlantic slavery began in the early sixteenth century, when the Portuguese and Spanish forcefully brought captured African slaves to the New World, in order to work for them. The British Empire introduced slavery to North America on a large scale, and the economy of the British colonies there depended on slave labor, particularly regarding cotton, sugar and tobacco output. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century the number of slaves being brought to the Americas increased exponentially, and at the time of American independence it was legal in all thirteen colonies. Although slavery became increasingly prohibited in the north, the number of slaves remained high during this time as they were simply relocated or sold from the north to the south. It is also important to remember that the children of slaves were also viewed as property, and (apart from some very rare cases) were born into a life of slavery. Abolition and the American Civil War In the years that followed independence, the Northern States began gradually prohibiting slavery, and it was officially abolished there by 1805, and the importation of slave labor was prohibited nationwide from 1808 (although both still existed in practice after this). Business owners in the Southern States however depended on slave labor in order to meet the demand of their rapidly expanding industries, and the issue of slavery continued to polarize American society in the decades to come. This culminated in the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860, who promised to prohibit slavery in the newly acquired territories to the west, leading to the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. Although the Confederacy (south) were victorious in much of the early stages of the war, the strength in numbers of the northern states (including many free, black men), eventually resulted in a victory for the Union (north), and the nationwide abolishment of slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Legacy In total, an estimated twelve to thirteen million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, and this does not include the high number who did not survive the journey (which was as high as 23 percent in some years). In the 150 years since the abolishment of slavery in the US, the African-American community have continuously campaigned for equal rights and opportunities that were not afforded to them along with freedom. The most prominent themes have been the Civil Rights Movement, voter suppression, mass incarceration and the relationship between the police and the African-American community has taken the spotlight in recent years.

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.

The world population surpassed eight billion people in 2022, having doubled from its figure less than 50 years previously. Looking forward, it is projected that the world population will reach nine billion in 2038, and 10 billion in 2060, but it will peak around 10.3 billion in the 2080s before it then goes into decline. Regional variations The global population has seen rapid growth since the early 1800s, due to advances in areas such as food production, healthcare, water safety, education, and infrastructure, however, these changes did not occur at a uniform time or pace across the world. Broadly speaking, the first regions to undergo their demographic transitions were Europe, North America, and Oceania, followed by Latin America and Asia (although Asia's development saw the greatest variation due to its size), while Africa was the last continent to undergo this transformation. Because of these differences, many so-called "advanced" countries are now experiencing population decline, particularly in Europe and East Asia, while the fastest population growth rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, the roughly two billion difference in population between now and the 2080s' peak will be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, which will rise from 1.2 billion to 3.2 billion in this time (although populations in other continents will also fluctuate). Changing projections The United Nations releases their World Population Prospects report every 1-2 years, and this is widely considered the foremost demographic dataset in the world. However, recent years have seen a notable decline in projections when the global population will peak, and at what number. Previous reports in the 2010s had suggested a peak of over 11 billion people, and that population growth would continue into the 2100s, however a sooner and shorter peak is now projected. Reasons for this include a more rapid population decline in East Asia and Europe, particularly China, as well as a prolongued development arc in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 1800, the estimated population of the region of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was approximately 5.18 million. Throughout the 19th century, this number would slowly but steadily rise, reaching over 8.7 million by the beginning of the 20th century. Like many countries in Africa, the DRC experienced a significant population boom, as rapid modernization, expansive economic growth and extensive vaccination campaigns led to a reduction in child mortality and an increase in life expectancy. While the population would continue to grow rapidly, growth would slow somewhat in the 1990s, as a mixture of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and several regional and civil conflicts would result in many deaths in the region. However, the DRC’s population continues to grow exponentially, and in 2020, just under 90 million people are estimated to live in the country.

From the time of Columbus' arrival on the island in 1494, until British annexation in 1655, the island of Jamaica was largely under Spanish control. During this time, Jamaica was not colonized as extensively as other areas of the Americas (due to the lack of precious metals, which had become the focus of Spanish expansion in the 16th) and was mostly used as a supply base for other colonization efforts. Because of this, the number of slaves brought to the island was relatively low, until Britain took control of the island and began planting on a much larger scale. Jamaica as the world's largest sugar exporter For most of the 18th century, Jamaica was Britain's most valuable colony in the Caribbean, as the British plantations focused largely on the production of cash crops; especially sugar. In the 1700s, Jamaica was the second largest sugar exporter in the world, behind the French colony of St. Domingue (Haiti); however, Haiti lost this position during the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, at which point Jamaica emerged as the global leader. Jamaica held this title for almost three decades until the slave trade and slavery were abolished throughout the British Empire in 1807 and 1833 respectively, during which time which point Cuba quickly overtook it as the global leader. Demographic impact The vast majority of Jamaica's population at this time were African-born slaves or their ancestors; the high mortality rates and low fertility rates on Jamaica's plantations meant that slave owners had to import a high number of African captives into the colony in order to meet the output levels demanded by European consumers. There were sizeable numbers of white indentured servants, white planters, free people of color and maroons (former slaves who escaped and formed their own communities in Jamaica's interior) living in Jamaica during this century, however enslaved people made up the vast majority of Jamaica's population. Between 1607 and 1842, an estimated 1.02 million African captives disembarked in Jamaican ports, while an unknown number of slaves were imported from other areas of the Americas. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, yet the practice of slavery was not abolished until 1833 (and came into effect the following year); although no slave arrivals were recorded in these years, it is very likely that slaves continued to be smuggled into Jamaica until the mid-1800s. Today, it is estimated that approximately 98% of Jamaica's population is of African or mixed descent, the primary reason for this was the Atlantic slave trade.

This statistic shows the population of the United States in the final census year before the American Civil War, shown by race and gender. From the data we can see that there were almost 27 million white people, 4.5 million black people, and eighty thousand classed as 'other'. The proportions of men to women were different for each category, with roughly 700 thousand more white men than women, over 100 thousand more black women than men, and almost three times as many men than women in the 'other' category. The reason for the higher male numbers in the white and other categories is because men migrated to the US at a higher rate than women, while there is no concrete explanation for the statistic regarding black people.

In 2022, India overtook China as the world's most populous country and now has almost 1.46 billion people. China now has the second-largest population in the world, still with just over 1.4 billion inhabitants, however, its population went into decline in 2023. Global population As of 2025, the world's population stands at almost 8.2 billion people and is expected to reach around 10.3 billion people in the 2080s, when it will then go into decline. Due to improved healthcare, sanitation, and general living conditions, the global population continues to increase; mortality rates (particularly among infants and children) are decreasing and the median age of the world population has steadily increased for decades. As for the average life expectancy in industrial and developing countries, the gap has narrowed significantly since the mid-20th century. Asia is the most populous continent on Earth; 11 of the 20 largest countries are located there. It leads the ranking of the global population by continent by far, reporting four times as many inhabitants as Africa. The Demographic Transition The population explosion over the past two centuries is part of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition. Simply put, this transition results from a drastic reduction in mortality, which then leads to a reduction in fertility, and increase in life expectancy; this interim period where death rates are low and birth rates are high is where this population explosion occurs, and population growth can remain high as the population ages. In today's most-developed countries, the transition generally began with industrialization in the 1800s, and growth has now stabilized as birth and mortality rates have re-balanced. Across less-developed countries, the stage of this transition varies; for example, China is at a later stage than India, which accounts for the change in which country is more populous - understanding the demographic transition can help understand the reason why China's population is now going into decline. The least-developed region is Sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility rates remain close to pre-industrial levels in some countries. As these countries transition, they will undergo significant rates of population growth

In 1789, on the eve of the Haitian (and French) Revolution, the French colony of St Domingue had an estimated population of 556 thousand people. Of these, 500 thousand are thought to have been African slaves (approximately half of the entire Caribbean's slave population at the time), while just over ten percent of the population were whites or free people of color. Following the Haitian Revolution's conclusion in 1804, Haiti would become just the second nation in the Americas to gain its independence, and was the first (and only) country in the world to have been established by former slaves.

Throughout the history of the transatlantic slave trade, approximately 5.7 million of the 12.5 million African slaves who embarked on slave ships did so in ports along the region of West Central Africa and St. Helena. Today, these regions are in the countries of Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. The majority of the rest were taken from West Africa, embarking in ports between the present-day countries of Senegal and Gabon, while a smaller number of slaves were captured in the southeast of Africa. Senegambia and off-shore Atlantic islands had the highest number of captives taken from that region in the 16th century, however West Central Africa and St. Helena was the region where most slaves embarked on their journey across the Atlantic in the following centuries. As Portuguese traders were responsible for transporting the largest volume of slaves to the Americas, it is unsurprising that many of the busiest ports in the transatlantic slave trade were in Portuguese-controlled enclaves along the African coast.

Between 1501 and 1866, it is estimated that over 12.5 million people were forced onto ships in Africa, and transported to the Americas as slaves. Furthermore, it is estimated that only 10.7 million of these slaves disembarked on the other side of the Atlantic, meaning that roughly 1.8 million did not survive the journey. The transatlantic slave trade was a part of the triangular trade route between Europe, Africa and the Americas, during the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Generally speaking, this route saw European merchants bring manufactured products to Africa to trade for slaves, then transport the slaves to the Americas to harvest raw materials, before taking these materials back to Europe where they would then be consumed or used in manufacturing. Slavery was an integral part in funding the expansion of Europe's colonial empires, which shaped the modern and highly globalized world in which we live today.

The Middle Passage As with trade, the slave journey was also broken into three parts; the First Passage was the stage where slaves were captured and transported to African ports, the Middle Passage was the journey across the Atlantic, while the Final Passage was where the slaves were transported to their place of work. The death toll in the First Passage is thought to be the highest of the three stages, as millions were killed or fatally wounded as they were captured, however a lack of written data and historical evidence has made this number difficult to estimate. In contrast, shipping records from the time give a much more accurate picture of the Middle Passage's death toll, and this data suggest that roughly 14.5 percent of slaves did not survive the journey. The reason for this was the harsh and cramped conditions on board; slave ships were designed in such a way that they could fit the maximum number of slaves on board in order to maximize profits. These conditions then facilitated the spread of diseases, such as smallpox and dysentery, while malnutrition and thirst created further problems. Generally, slavers aimed to keep slaves as healthy (therefore; profitable) as possible, although there are countless examples of mistreatment and punishment of slaves by their captors, and several cases where slaves were exterminated by the crew as provisions ran low.

Rise and fall of the transatlantic slave trade

The European arrival in the Americas also saw the introduction of virgin soil epidemics (new diseases being introduced to biologically defenseless populations) which decimated the indigenous populations. The abundance of natural resources, but lack of available labor led to the rise of the transatlantic slave trade. Until the mid-1600s, Portuguese traders had a near-monopoly on this trade, supplying slaves to the newly expanding Spanish and Portuguese empires in South America. As other European powers began to expand their empires in the Caribbean and North America, the slave trade grew dramatically, and during the eighteenth century, the number of slaves being brought to the New World increased from an annual average of thirty thousand in the 1690s to 87 thousand in the 1790s. The transatlantic slave trade reached its peak between the 1750 and 1850, and an average of 74 thousand slaves were brought to the Americas each year between these dates. The largest decline came as the slave trade was disrupted during the American War of Independence (1775-1783), although the trade became weakened as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in Europe and the Americas around the turn of the century. The most significant impacts came as the slave trade was abolished in Britain and the U.S. in 1807 and Brazil in 1831, and Britain then used its position as the global superpower to impose abolition on other nations and used the Royal Navy to enforce these measures. While most nations abolished the slave trade in the early 1800s, it would take decades before the actual practice of slavery would be abolished; today, slavery is illegal in almost every country, however modern slavery in the forms of forced labor, human trafficking and sexual exploitation continues to be prevalent across the globe.

Throughout most of human history, global population growth was very low; between 10,000BCE and 1700CE, the average annual increase was just 0.04 percent. Therefore, it took several thousand years for the global population to reach one billion people, doing so in 1803. However, this period marked the beginning of a global phenomenon known as the demographic transition, from which point population growth skyrocketed. With the introduction of modern medicines (especially vaccination), as well as improvements in water sanitation, food supply, and infrastructure, child mortality fell drastically and life expectancy increased, causing the population to grow. This process is linked to economic and technological development, and did not take place concurrently across the globe; it mostly began in Europe and other industrialized regions in the 19thcentury, before spreading across Asia and Latin America in the 20th century. As the most populous societies in the world are found in Asia, the demographic transition in this region coincided with the fastest period of global population growth. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region at the earliest stage of this transition. As population growth slows across the other continents, with the populations of the Americas, Asia, and Europe expected to be in decline by the 2070s, Africa's population is expected to grow by three billion people by the end of the 21st century.

For most of the past two centuries, falling birth rates have been associated with societal progress. During the demographic transition, where pre-industrial societies modernize in terms of fertility and mortality, falling death rates, especially among infants and children, are the first major change. In response, as more children survive into adulthood, women have fewer children as the need to compensate for child mortality declines. This transition has happened at different times across the world and is an ongoing process, with early industrial countries being the first to transition, and Sub-Saharan African countries being the most recent to do so. Additionally, some Asian countries (particularly China through government policy) have gone through their demographic transitions at a much faster pace than those deemed more developed. Today, in countries such as Japan, Italy, and Germany, birth rates have fallen well below death rates; this is no longer considered a positive demographic trend, as it leads to natural population decline, and may create an over-aged population that could place a burden on healthcare systems.

From the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, Portuguese and Brazilian traders were responsible for transporting the highest volume of slaves during the transatlantic slave trade. It is estimated that, of the 12.5 million African slaves captured during this time, more than 5.8 million were transported in ships that sailed under the Portuguese and, later, Brazilian flags. British traders transported the second-highest volume of slaves across the Atlantic, totaling at almost 3.3 million; over 2.5 million of these were transported in the 18th century, which was the highest volume of slaves transported by one nation in one century.

In 1800, the population of Portugal was estimated to be approximately 2.8 million; a figure that would see gradual growth throughout the 19th century. During this time, Portugal experienced a series of political and military challenges, including an invasion by Napoleonic France, the cessation of Brazil (it's largest colony), and a civil war caused by royal succession; nonetheless, Portugal remained an international power throughout the 1800s, with significant spheres of influence on all continents. 20th century At the turn of the 20th century, Portugal's international standing began to diminish, and its weakening position in Africa initiated a wave of civil unrest in the metropole. In 1908, following a period of political instability, King Carlos I and his heir were assassinated in Lisbon, and the 5 October 1910 Revolution permanently brought an end to the monarchy. This, however, did not end the political instability, which was further exacerbated by the impacts of the First World War and Spanish Flu pandemic (which, combined, resulted in the deaths of more than 220,000 Portuguese people). Portugal would then experience a rapid population gain following the establishment of the Second Republic (Estado Novo) in 1933, under the 34 year reign of António de Oliveira Salazar, which would see Portugal’s currency stabilized and significant economic growth lasting until the 1960s. However, Portugal’s population would decline in the early 1960s, as escalating colonial wars overseas, combined with increasing political instability at home would see many citizens emigrating elsewhere in Europe; particularly youths attempting to avoid the country’s military draft. Growth would largely resume following the end of the dictatorship with the Carnation Revolution of 1974, as many Portuguese migrants in the now independent colonies would return to Europe. Recent decades While growth would slow (and decline slightly) amidst economic troubles in the 1980s, Portugal’s population generally increased until 2008, when it peaked at 10.6 million people. From 2008 until today, a combination of the long term impacts of the 2008 financial crisis and declining fertility rates have resulted in a steady drop in the country’s population. As a result, in 2020, Portugal is estimated to have fallen to 10.2 million people, although it is also regarded as one of the most stable, peaceful and democratic countries in the world.

The world's Jewish population has had a complex and tumultuous history over the past millennia, regularly dealing with persecution, pogroms, and even genocide. The legacy of expulsion and persecution of Jews, including bans on land ownership, meant that Jewish communities disproportionately lived in urban areas, working as artisans or traders, and often lived in their own settlements separate to the rest of the urban population. This separation contributed to the impression that events such as pandemics, famines, or economic shocks did not affect Jews as much as other populations, and such factors came to form the basis of the mistrust and stereotypes of wealth (characterized as greed) that have made up anti-Semitic rhetoric for centuries. Development since the Middle Ages The concentration of Jewish populations across the world has shifted across different centuries. In the Middle Ages, the largest Jewish populations were found in Palestine and the wider Levant region, with other sizeable populations in present-day France, Italy, and Spain. Later, however, the Jewish disapora became increasingly concentrated in Eastern Europe after waves of pogroms in the west saw Jewish communities move eastward. Poland in particular was often considered a refuge for Jews from the late-Middle Ages until the 18th century, when it was then partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and persecution increased. Push factors such as major pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 19th century and growing oppression in the west during the interwar period then saw many Jews migrate to the United States in search of opportunity.

In 1498, Vasco da Gama became the first known European to sail to India by circumventing Africa, which ushered in a new age of European sea trade with Asia. Initially, Indian rulers were unimpressed and wary of the Portuguese, and Muslim traders in the region were hostile, but the Portuguese were able to assess what could be traded for exotic goods (mostly spices) and lucrative trade routes were established after subsequent journeys. Additionally, the Portuguese quickly learned that they had the technological advantage in conflict, and repelled attacks from their Muslim rivals. Fortified trading posts, known as factories, were then established along the African and Asian coasts to protect these trade routes, and these became the foundation upon which the Portuguese Empire (Europe's longest-lasting) was built.

Colonization and competition In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas saw Portugal and Spain draw a line through the Atlantic, with each crown laying claim to all non-Christian lands on their respective side. No other European power acknowledged these claims, but it would take almost a century for the British, Dutch, or French to begin establishing their own maritime empires; this meant that the Portuguese had a near-monopoly on the Indian spice trade for almost 100 years, and this was the century when their trade with Asia was most active. Portuguese traders not only did business with merchants in India, but they also explored further, and established trade routes with present-day China, Indonesia, and Japan, and even facilitated trade between these cultures. In the 1590s, the Dutch then followed the Portuguese model of empire building and quickly emerged as Portugal's biggest rival in Asia. VOC The Dutch and Portuguese were in conflict for over 60 years, across four continents, and the Asian and African conflicts are often referred to as the "Spice War". The Netherlands eventually usurped Portugal as the strongest European trading power in Asia by the mid-1600s. Most of the Dutch trade was done through the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which is often considered the most valuable company to have ever existed. In the 17th century, 56 percent of all ships that travelled from the given countries to Asia were Dutch, and the figure was over 44 percent in the following century. Such companies were not only trading enterprises, but also acted in the military and political interests of their respective crowns. The VOC went into decline in the mid-1700s, as the British Empire gained the upper hand in its rivalry with the Netherlands. The British East India Company then consolidated its power on the Indian subcontinent, and Dutch interests were largely centered in the East Indies (present-day Indonesia), which remained a Dutch colony until the Second World War. For France, its primary colonial power in Asia was in French Indochina, made up of present-day Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, although the seven European powers had trade connections all over Asia, and all competed or cooperated with one another at various points in these 300 years.