Re: A Non-Political Question
Quote:
Originally Posted by texaspackerbacker
Maybe I should have put this in Romper Room, but all of the superior intellects are in here, so here it is:
My youngest daughter who is a middle school social studies teacher called me up and asked, "Why is the population of China and India so large? How did it become that way?"
My first thought was that maybe they didn't have the plagues and long term wars that killed off so many in Europe, but I really wasn't able to give her more than a speculative answer. Anybody got an explanation--serious/non-sarcastic/maybe even non-political?
China has to be as big as it is because if it wasn't then 800 million Chinamen could be wrong. Oh yeah, you say you want a serious answer. If I remember my world history, China has always been huge, 80 million or so at the time of Christ. It has always been an agricultural society, which--assuming you have the necessary technology--certainly promotes stability and population growth. And the coastal regions, from Beijing to Shanghai all the way down south to Hong Kong, get lots and lots of crop-friendly rain. That's my best bet.