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.

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...

This dataset contains data on population movement (population, marriages, births, deaths, infant deaths (under 1 year), natural increase of population) in Estonia in Livonia Province (within the current borders of Estonia and Latvia) in 1897-1914. Dataset "Population Movement in Livonia Province (Estonia and Latvia), 1897-1914" was published implementing project "Historical Sociology of Modern Restorations: a Cross-Time Comparative Study of Post-Communist Transformation in the Baltic States" from 2018 to 2022. Project leader is prof. Zenonas Norkus. Project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the activity "Improvement of researchers' qualification by implementing world-class R&D projects' of Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712".

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.

This dataset contains data on population movement (population, marriages, births, deaths, infant deaths (under 1 year), natural increase of population) in Estonia in Estonia Province (within the current borders Estonia) in 1897-1914. Dataset "Population Movement in Estonia Province (Estonia), 1897-1914" was published implementing project "Historical Sociology of Modern Restorations: a Cross-Time Comparative Study of Post-Communist Transformation in the Baltic States" from 2018 to 2022. Project leader is prof. Zenonas Norkus. Project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the activity "Improvement of researchers' qualification by implementing world-class R&D projects' of Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712".

This dataset contains data on population movement (population, marriages, births, deaths, infant deaths (under 1 year), natural increase of population) in Vilnius Province (within the current borders Belarus and Lithuania) in 1897-1914. Dataset "Population Movement in Vilnius Province (Belarus and Lithuania), 1897-1914" was published implementing project "Historical Sociology of Modern Restorations: a Cross-Time Comparative Study of Post-Communist Transformation in the Baltic States" from 2018 to 2022. Project leader is prof. Zenonas Norkus. Project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the activity "Improvement of researchers' qualification by implementing world-class R&D projects' of Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712".

This dataset contains data on population movement (population, marriages, births, deaths, infant deaths (under 1 year), natural increase of population) in Suwalki Province (within the current borders of Lithuania and Poland) in 1897-1914. Dataset "Population Movement in Suwalki Province (Lithuania and Poland), 1897-1914" was published implementing project "Historical Sociology of Modern Restorations: a Cross-Time Comparative Study of Post-Communist Transformation in the Baltic States" from 2018 to 2022. Project leader is prof. Zenonas Norkus. Project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the activity "Improvement of researchers' qualification by implementing world-class R&D projects' of Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712".

This dataset contains data on population movement (population, marriages, births, deaths, infant deaths (under 1 year), natural increase of population) in Kaunas Province (within the current borders Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania) in 1897-1914. Dataset "Population Movement in Kaunas Province (Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania), 1897-1914" was published implementing project "Historical Sociology of Modern Restorations: a Cross-Time Comparative Study of Post-Communist Transformation in the Baltic States" from 2018 to 2022. Project leader is prof. Zenonas Norkus. Project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the activity "Improvement of researchers' qualification by implementing world-class R&D projects' of Measure No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712".

In 1800, the population of Japan was just over 30 million, a figure which would grow by just two million in the first half of the 19th century. However, with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the emperor in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan would begin transforming from an isolated feudal island, to a modernized empire built on Western models. The Meiji period would see a rapid rise in the population of Japan, as industrialization and advancements in healthcare lead to a significant reduction in child mortality rates, while the creation overseas colonies would lead to a strong economic boom. However, this growth would slow beginning in 1937, as Japan entered a prolonged war with the Republic of China, which later grew into a major theater of the Second World War. The war was eventually brought to Japan's home front, with the escalation of Allied air raids on Japanese urban centers from 1944 onwards (Tokyo was the most-bombed city of the Second World War). By the war's end in 1945 and the subsequent occupation of the island by the Allied military, Japan had suffered over two and a half million military fatalities, and over one million civilian deaths.

The population figures of Japan were quick to recover, as the post-war “economic miracle” would see an unprecedented expansion of the Japanese economy, and would lead to the country becoming one of the first fully industrialized nations in East Asia. As living standards rose, the population of Japan would increase from 77 million in 1945, to over 127 million by the end of the century. However, growth would begin to slow in the late 1980s, as birth rates and migration rates fell, and Japan eventually grew to have one of the oldest populations in the world. The population would peak in 2008 at just over 128 million, but has consistently fallen each year since then, as the fertility rate of the country remains below replacement level (despite government initiatives to counter this) and the country's immigrant population remains relatively stable. The population of Japan is expected to continue its decline in the coming years, and in 2020, it is estimated that approximately 126 million people inhabit the island country.

Prepared by ICPSR under a project to automate major portions of the Statistique Generale de la France, this is a collection of demographic, social, education, economic, population, and vital statistics data for France, 1833-1925. This conversion project is a continuation of one conducted in 1972, for which a similar data collection was created, SOCIAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND EDUCATIONAL DATA FOR FRANCE, 1801-1897 (ICPSR 0048). The project to collect and prepare these data was sponsored by two French and two American groups: ICPSR and the Center for Western European Studies at the University of Michigan, and the Fourth and Sixth Sections of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Conseil National de la Recherches Scientifique in France. Both collections include data recorded at the departement, arrondissement, chef-lieu, and ville level. In this collection, materials from the vital statistics series were prepared for selected years rather than for each year in the period from 1900-1925. The years that were chosen clustered around the quinquennial censuses and also included (because of the violent demographic dislocations produced by World War I) each year in the 1914-1919 period. In addition, some vital statistics for the nineteenth century (1836-1850, 1880, and 1892) obtained from fugitive published volumes that could not be located during the course of the 1972 project were prepared. The 136 datasets in this collection contain: (1) French population, economic, and social data obtained from the quenquennial censuses of 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1921, that detail the composition of the population by categories of age, sex, nativity, marital status, religion, place of residence, and occupation, (2) industrial census data for the years 1861-1896, (3) data on primary education in France for 1833, 1901, and 1906, as well as data on secondary and higher education in France for the years 1836-1850, 1880, and 1892, and (4) data from a separate series of annual vital statistics (Mouvement de la Population) that cover the years 1836-1850, 1892, and 1900-1925, citing births, deaths, and marriages in the nation.

In 2023, the population of the United Kingdom reached 68.3 million, compared with 67.6 million in 2022. The UK population has more than doubled since 1871 when just under 31.5 million lived in the UK and has grown by around 8.2 million since the start of the twenty-first century. For most of the twentieth century, the UK population steadily increased, with two noticeable drops in population occurring during World War One (1914-1918) and in World War Two (1939-1945). Demographic trends in postwar Britain After World War Two, Britain and many other countries in the Western world experienced a 'baby boom,' with a postwar peak of 1.02 million live births in 1947. Although the number of births fell between 1948 and 1955, they increased again between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, with more than one million people born in 1964. Since 1964, however, the UK birth rate has fallen from 18.8 births per 1,000 people to a low of just 10.2 in 2020. As a result, the UK population has gotten significantly older, with the country's median age increasing from 37.9 years in 2001 to 40.7 years in 2022. What are the most populated areas of the UK? The vast majority of people in the UK live in England, which had a population of 57.7 million people in 2023. By comparison, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland had populations of 5.44 million, 3.13 million, and 1.9 million, respectively. Within England, South East England had the largest population, at over 9.38 million, followed by the UK's vast capital city of London, at 8.8 million. London is far larger than any other UK city in terms of urban agglomeration, with just four other cities; Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow, boasting populations that exceed one million people.

From 1273 until 1918, Austria was the seat of power of the House of Habsburg; one of Europe's most powerful and influential royal families of the past millennium. During this time and in the subsequent century since the Austro-Hungarian Empire's dissolution, the borders and demography of the Austrian state have changed dramatically, with the population growing from approximately three million people in 1800 to just over nine million in 2020. The area of modern Austria's population rose gradually throughout the nineteenth century, until the early 1900s, where it then dropped and fluctuated during the World Wars, before rising again until recent years.

End of an empire

The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, caused Austria to declare war on Serbia, which marked the outbreak of the First World War. The war (and subsequent Spanish Flu pandemic) would see the deaths of more than 1.2 million people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the area of modern Austria's population dropped by almost 400,000 people between 1916 and 1920. In the years preceding the First World War, Slavic nationalism and tensions between various ethnicities in the empire had escalated to a new level; following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, new states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created for corresponding ethnic groups, while Austrian and Hungarian states were created for ethnic Germans and Magyars respectively (Austria still uses this border today). The Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Austria from joining Germany, however in 1938, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler (who was born in Austria) united the two nations as part of the German Third Reich, with overwhelming support by the people of Austria. In the next few years, Austria's population decreased slightly, as a result of the forced relocation of Jews and the outbreak of the Second World War. Due to the Austria-German union, separate records were not kept for Austrian and German deaths during the war, however most estimates put Austria's total at over 350,000 fatalities.

Post-war Austria

Following Germany's defeat, Austria was split into four separately administered sections, and then the Second Austrian Republic was established in 1955, declaring its permanent neutrality in foreign affairs. In the period after this Austria has enjoyed a period of continued prosperity with a high standard of living and reasonable economic growth. Population growth stagnated in the 80's with the legalization of abortion and improved access to contraception, but has grown steadily in the past three decades. Austria is consistently ranked among the top 20 richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita, and in 2018 it was ranked 20th in the world by the Human Development Index.

About 1913 the Saar Region was the third-largest German montane region. After 1914 the Saar region and other industrial branches of the region lost their importance due to world-economic structural shifts and to political developments. So, in 1914 finished the development process of this region, which was until then a very stable process, starting at the end of the 18th century with the first innovations and strong growth of the single economic sectores and experiences during the 50ies of the 19th century a strong acceleration. These industrial upheavals during the hundred years between the Congress of Vienna and the First World War are the subject of the investigation. The aim is to describe the pattern of process of the industrial economic development in this region. Growth and structural change of the secondary sector are analysed, using methods of comparative economic history. Micro- as well as macroeconomic levels of regions are taking into account. Growth and structural change are recorded and described quantitatively. The acquired pattern of development is then compared with the development pattern of the other two large montan regions, the Ruhr and Upper Silesia. Because of the methodological concept of the investigation of economic small scale regions and the defined methodological assumption the following questions are of importance for the analysis: - Which industrial branches have existed in the region before 1918 and which branches have mainly carried the industrialization process of the region? - How the single industrial branches developed and which growth course they showed? - How changed the sectoral structure or the trade structure?
- Which basic conditions existed in the region? - Which infrastructure was developed during the industrializationprocess? - Which interdependencies existed between the industries within the region and to what extent promoted or inhibited the external relations of the region the course of industrialization of the Saar region?

The focus of the investigation are the following industries: Coal mining, the iron and steel industry, the glassworks industry, the chemical industry and other commercial and industrial sectors. „Ziel ist es, für die Branchen in der jeweiligen Periode die wesentlichen Kennzeichen herauszuarbeiten. Für beide Perioden sollen dann die verschiedenen Wachstumsverläufe der einzelnen Industriezweige und deren strukturelle Charakteristika sowie die Verflechtung zwischen den einzelnen Branchen zusammengefasst werden“ (Banken, a.a.O., S. 52). (The aim is to work out the essential features for the industry in the respecitve period. For both periods, then, the different growth patterns of the individual industries and their structural characteristics and the relationship between the various sectors are summarized).

The structural aspects of the study can be summarized as follows: Production development and employment, Company and market structure, Technical development and employment, Sales ratios and economic outcomes.

Data-Tables in the Download-Database HISTAT

I. Population A3 Population in the Saar Region 1820-1910 A4 Population trends in the municipalities of the Saar region 1815-1914 A5 The population in the communes/local authorities of the Saar region 1815-1914

II. Coal-Mining A6 Coal production and employment in the Saar region before 1815 A7 Coal production in the Saar region 1817-1913 A8 Coal production and employment in the mining districts Ruhr, Saar and Upper Silesia 1816-1912 A9 Employment in the coal mines of the Saar region 1817-1913 A10 The development of state-Prussian coal mines in the Saar region 1815-1913 A11 The development of private Prussian coal mines in the Saar region 1815-1913 A12 The development of state-Bavarian coal mines in the Saar region 1815-1913 A13 The development of private Bavarian coal mines in the Saar region 1878-1913 A14 The development of the Lorraine coal mines 1856-1913 A15 Wages, shifts, support services and grants in the Saar coal mines 1815-1913 A16 Prices favoring the Prussian mines in the Saar region 1816-1859 A17 Economic results of the coal companies in the Saar region 1815-1914 A18 The development of the coke in the Saar region 1815-1914 A49 Conveying values, revenues and coal prices in the coal mines of the Saar region 1850-1913 A50 Markets and customers of the Saar coal mines 1850-1913 A51 The cost structure of the Prussian mines in the Saar 1850-1900 A53 The investme...

The First World War saw the mobilization of more than 65 million soldiers, and the deaths of almost 15 million soldiers and civilians combined. Approximately 8.8 million of these deaths were of military personnel, while six million civilians died as a direct result of the war; mostly through hunger, disease and genocide. The German army suffered the highest number of military losses, totaling at more than two million men. Turkey had the highest civilian death count, largely due to the mass extermination of Armenians, as well as Greeks and Assyrians. Varying estimates suggest that Russia may have suffered the highest number of military and total fatalities in the First World War. However, this is complicated by the subsequent Russian Civil War and Russia's total specific to the First World War remains unclear to this day.

Proportional deaths In 1914, Central and Eastern Europe was largely divided between the empires of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, while the smaller Balkan states had only emerged in prior decades with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. For these reasons, the major powers in the east were able to mobilize millions of men from across their territories, as Britain and France did with their own overseas colonies, and were able to utilize their superior manpower to rotate and replace soldiers, whereas smaller nations did not have this luxury. For example, total military losses for Romania and Serbia are around 12 percent of Germany's total military losses; however, as a share of their total mobilized forces these countries lost roughly 33 percent of their armies, compared to Germany's 15 percent mortality rate. The average mortality rate of all deployed soldiers in the war was around 14 percent.

Unclarity in the totals Despite ending over a century ago, the total number of deaths resulting from the First World War remains unclear. The impact of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as various classifications of when or why fatalities occurred, has resulted in varying totals with differences ranging in the millions. Parallel conflicts, particularly the Russian Civil War, have also made it extremely difficult to define which conflicts the fatalities should be attributed to. Since 2012, the totals given by Hirschfeld et al in Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War have been viewed by many in the historical community as the most reliable figures on the subject.

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 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.

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 the past four centuries, the population of the United States has grown from a recorded 350 people around the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1610, to an estimated 331 million people in 2020. The pre-colonization populations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas have proven difficult for historians to estimate, as their numbers decreased rapidly following the introduction of European diseases (namely smallpox, plague and influenza). Native Americans were also omitted from most censuses conducted before the twentieth century, therefore the actual population of what we now know as the United States would have been much higher than the official census data from before 1800, but it is unclear by how much. Population growth in the colonies throughout the eighteenth century has primarily been attributed to migration from the British Isles and the Transatlantic slave trade; however it is also difficult to assert the ethnic-makeup of the population in these years as accurate migration records were not kept until after the 1820s, at which point the importation of slaves had also been illegalized. Nineteenth century In the year 1800, it is estimated that the population across the present-day United States was around six million people, with the population in the 16 admitted states numbering at 5.3 million. Migration to the United States began to happen on a large scale in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first major waves coming from Ireland, Britain and Germany. In some aspects, this wave of mass migration balanced out the demographic impacts of the American Civil War, which was the deadliest war in U.S. history with approximately 620 thousand fatalities between 1861 and 1865. The civil war also resulted in the emancipation of around four million slaves across the south; many of whose ancestors would take part in the Great Northern Migration in the early 1900s, which saw around six million black Americans migrate away from the south in one of the largest demographic shifts in U.S. history. By the end of the nineteenth 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. Twentieth and twenty-first century The U.S. population has grown steadily throughout the past 120 years, reaching one hundred million in the 1910s, two hundred million in the 1960s, and three hundred million in 2007. In the past century, the U.S. established itself as a global superpower, with the world's largest economy (by nominal GDP) and most powerful military. Involvement in foreign wars has resulted in over 620,000 further U.S. fatalities since the Civil War, and migration fell drastically during the World Wars and Great Depression; however the population continuously grew in these years as the total fertility rate remained above two births per woman, and life expectancy increased (except during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918).

Since the Second World War, Latin America has replaced Europe as the most common point of origin for migrants, with Hispanic populations growing rapidly across the south and border states. Because of this, the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, which has been the most dominant ethnicity in the U.S. since records began, has dropped more rapidly in recent decades. Ethnic minorities also have a much higher birth rate than non-Hispanic whites, further contributing to this decline, and the share of non-Hispanic whites is expected to fall below fifty percent of the U.S. population by the mid-2000s. In 2020, the United States has the third-largest population in the world (after China and India), and the population is expected to reach four hundred million in the 2050s.

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.

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.