Why does China have so many people?

are you serious? the US is 200+ years old. china is 5000+ years old, and has been an agrarian society for most of that time. 5000 years of having a bunch of kids to "help out on the farm" will make the population much larger than than 200 years of the same behavior will.

You're not considering the fact that before North America was the US it was inhabited by Native Americans who also lived an agrian life. Despite those similarities China still had way more people than North America. I think the OP has a good point when he brings up the fact that the Chinese, despite their wretched living conditions and disasters, still continue to have a astonishing population growth.

Their population is not as big as they report. The main cities are very densely populated but there is a lot of dead space in rural parts of the country. The real population is only around 300 million and they fabricate census data to appear more powerful than they are.

China is an empire composed of hundreds of conquered lands. The borders of China are ever changing and constantly in dispute. Today China is only a fraction of what it was 1200-1500 when China spanned the cities, towns, farms, lakes, rivers, valleys, and mountains from Palestine, Russia, and Germany to Siberia, Iran, and Northern India.

It's mostly cultural. A better question would be "why does India have so many people?"

It's smaller than China, more poor, but has a faster growing population and will pass China by 2025.

Kind of wrote:

You're not considering the fact that before North America was the US it was inhabited by Native Americans who also lived an agrian life. Despite those similarities China still had way more people than North America. I think the OP has a good point when he brings up the fact that the Chinese, despite their wretched living conditions and disasters, still continue to have a astonishing population growth.

Something like 97% of all Native Americans were wiped out by disease and slaughter when the Europeans arrived. Native Americans were also not farmers; they were hunter-gatherers. The latter lifestyle is not conducive to population growth, while the former is.

There are many other factors at play. If interested, I suggest reading "Guns, Germs, and Steal" by Jared Diamond.

Emperor Chin had his domain back in the day plus he conquered a host of neighboring lands. All total that he named "China". Only Chin's home domain had the Han ethnicity. Since then the Han people have expanded outwards settling in conquered domains, and a number of domains have renamed their ethnicities to "Han" even though they aren't Han at all. You have to buy a book to get more details because it's complex and not everyone agrees on what happened as you would expect. The gist is that today's regime in China is frightened to hell of 1) encroachment from neighbor counties and 2) from seperatists in provinces with non-Han ethnics. A very similar situation exists in Russia also. No wonder because in today's world counties are far smaller than China and Russia, i.e. people want local control and self-determination as we read in current news reports in Palestine and Syria for example.

thank you. yes, i am aware that native americans inhabited america during the same time frame. but, this.

Having children in China, especially in the 20th century, has also been seen as a "security blanket" for the parents for when they get older. In China it has been the cultural norm for the older generation to retire from the workplace at a relatively young age ( I think the law requires most men to leave the work force at 65 while women leave at 60). When the older generation retires it has been required by culture, and now by the Chinese Constitution, for their children to fully support them if they have the means to do so. Taking this into consideration it is in the interest of the parents to have a lot of kids to up the odds of one of them being successful and rich and, just as important, keep having kids until one is a boy since girls traditionally leave her parents and join her husbands family.

There were apparently way more Native Peoples living in the Americas in Pre Columbian times than we like to think.

Recent studies suggest that as many of 90% of those folks were wiped out by European diseases that spread across both continents like wildfire.

China and India, and other underdeveloped countries such as Africa had one thing in common decades ago ---- poverty. Just ask yourself, lacking in technology, and in many cases even electricity, what would people do to entertain themselves? For farmers, with no TV or even electricity, going back to their house after sunset. What would you and your wife have done in the darkness, starting around 8:00pm until sunrise tomorrow, that was totally free of charge? Any adult should be able to answer this question correctly!

Oddly this all happened despite massive neutering campaigns up until about 100 years ago.

Now however the magic ingredient of Cream Of Sum Yung Gi is as potent as ever.

Guppy wrote:

Kind of wrote:

You're not considering the fact that before North America was the US it was inhabited by Native Americans who also lived an agrian life. Despite those similarities China still had way more people than North America. I think the OP has a good point when he brings up the fact that the Chinese, despite their wretched living conditions and disasters, still continue to have a astonishing population growth.

Something like 97% of all Native Americans were wiped out by disease and slaughter when the Europeans arrived. Native Americans were also not farmers; they were hunter-gatherers. The latter lifestyle is not conducive to population growth, while the former is.

There are many other factors at play. If interested, I suggest reading "Guns, Germs, and Steal" by Jared Diamond.

Uh, some Native American tribes were agrarian... maybe you should have paid more attention in school.

the real answer is babies wrote:

Disgusting country.

We got ourselves a winner here!

The scenery.

http://bikeglam.com/40-most-beautiful-chinese-girls-beautiful-chinese-women/

You forget that most of the world was in the same situation for thousands of years yet you don't see Europe having billions of people when they were for most of their history with nothing to do most of the time like Africans, Chinese and Indians. Oh and by the way Africa is not exactly the most populated region in the world. Maybe you can start thinking that it is not just having intercourse and bang there you go you have a new person. It takes money a lot of money to rear that many people. Why you ask yourself? well for one food is not free, clothing is not free, housing is not free? So actually to have that many people and yet have them well is a great achievement only great nations may achieve. Yes China went down in the 19th century for not adapting to change but look how they are doing now? They are back on top and in a little less than a century they will be the richest nation in terms of GDP per capita as it was trough out most of human history.

Shame on your ignorance.

the real answer is babies wrote:

The country is baby crazy. Men, women, grandparents, everyone.

The pressure that woman are under to marry and pop out babies is crazy. It's completely different to the US.

If a woman is 28 she starts getting shamed by everyone she knows to get married.

By 30 is deafening, I am sure.

Disgusting country.

+1

I dated a Chinese woman here in the usa who had only been here for a year or two. Her family put constant pressure on her to marry and she was only 26. Also there is this false belief that chinese women can't have children after the late 20s which of course is bullshit but it's what they believe.

Also if a Chinese woman is overweight, she is called a "pig" on the streets in China and also called "fat" even by her own family members.

The Culture differences are crazy, let me tell you

China is a empire that's why. Most of China's population is non-Han. Each captive ethnic group and nationality adds up and the aggregate makes today's China look big. When China is broken up into smaller countries it won't look so big anymore. There are 1,000 of active liberation movements presently in China to break away from Beijing. A similar situation exists in India, Russia, Israel, Tukiye, and many other countries.

China is...

1. a very large country

2. in a relatively fertile, stable environment

3. highly agrarian

4. family oriented

5. was not modernized until the late 20th century