The largest country?

Question

by population

Answer 1

That would be China with 1.3 billion people.  India comes in second with 1.1 billion people and the United States comes in third with 300 million people.

Answer 2

China! (India is 2nd.)

Answer 3

China, India, US

Answer 4

1 China

2 India

3 United States

4 Indonesia

5 Brazil

6 Pakistan

7 Bangladesh

8 Russia

9  Nigeria

10 Japan

Answer 5

china

Answer 6

Well... it's definately : CHINA !!!

Then India.... then the US  - those are the "top 3"...

Greetins from Germany... Annette****

Answer 7

China's population increases each year by approximately 12-13 million people, a number that exceeds the total population of individual countries such as Belgium, Greece, Cambodia, or Ecuador. Annual population growth in China actually exceeds the current population of Ohio, Illinois, or Pennsylvania.

China's Population Growth Throughout History

As early as 2 C.E. during the Han dynasty, China had a population of some 60 million-- approximately one-fourth of the world's population at that time. Historical fluctuations of growth and decline kept dynastic China's population between 37 and 60 million over a period of at least the next 1000 years before beginning to increase rapidly. In the early years of the Ming dynasty in the late fourteenth century, China's population began dramatic changes that continue to the present. Rapid increases occurred especially between 1749 and 1811 during the Qing dynasty when the country's population doubled from 177,495,000 to 358,610,000. By 1851, the population reached perhaps 431,896,000 before the effects of the disastrous Taiping Rebellion brought about a slowing of past growth patterns (Some 30,000,000 deaths occurred between 1851-1864 during the upheavals associated with the attempt to establish the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In some areas of central China, the effects of this were not reversed until the mid-twentieth century).

Throughout the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, increasing population pressure on China's arable land was an on-going problem. Remarkable changes in agriculture in China over this four century period attest to extraordinary successes in increasing grain production to feed the burgeoning population.

Migration from old areas into frontier areas helped broaden agriculture and spread population beyond already densely populated areas.

The introduction of higher-yielding rice seeds and earlier ripening varieties of rice increased productivity from existing intensively tilled fields.

Of great significance during this period was the introduction of new crops into Chinese cropping patterns. Especially noteworthy was the acceptance of a range of New World crops that had come to Asia from the Americas via the Spanish colonizers. These new crops--corn, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, especially--were all non-competitive with common grain crops because they could be grown in marginal areas such as on hill slopes and where soils were dry or sandy.

Increased ability to produce food was aided also by continuing attention to improving irrigation, creating level land via terracing, grain storage, and improvements in tools and organic fertilizers.

The doubling and redoubling of China's population occurred well before China began its industrial revolution. In spite of China's apparent success in keeping pace with population increases, these efforts however could not be sustained. Indeed, by the nineteenth century, the pressure of population numbers taxed the ability of the weakened Qing imperial system to deal with it.

Between 1851 and 1949, a century of rebellion, social upheaval, and suffering, China's population base increased "only" by another 100,000,000 on top of its 432,000,000 base. (During the same period, the population of the United States increased from about 23,000,000 to 151,000,000. Of this 128 million increase in the US, 36 million was due to immigration.) While China's absolute increase over this century was far below the increases of the preceding several centuries, the magnitude of China's overall population nonetheless bequeathed to the newly established People's Republic of China a resource of great potential and challenge of immense proportions.

Population Policy in the People's Republic of China (PRC): 1949 to the Present

China's first modern census in 1953 revealed a population of 583,000,000, a number that has more than doubled in less than 50 years to 1,252,800,000 people in 1999. One way to emphasize the magnitude of this recent surge is to realize that China's population increased between 1953 and the present by more than 670,000,000, a number that nearly exceeds the combined current total population of Europe (579,700,000).

How population issues have been addressed since 1949 have been important components of China's economic, social, and political development during the last half of this century. In spite of the enormous absolute increase in the country's population that occurred--especially during the first three decades after 1949--it is also clear that China has simultaneously been successful over the past twenty years in managing its population growth. Between 1953 and 1964, barely ten years, the country's population swelled by an additional 112,000,000 as death rates fell and birth rates remained high. Moreover, during the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1961, China experienced a tragic famine that led to as many as 20,000,000 deaths due to a breakdown in agricultural production and resulting food shortages. During this period, some spoke up for a population policy based upon an assessment of the country's need but the full state backing for a family planning program was yet to unfold.

One-Child Policy

Throughout the 1970s there was increasing evidence of inexorable increases that propelled population planners and politicians to attempt to bring about a drastic reduction of family size and slow increases. What emerged was the one child policy, a policy that has been both successful in statistical terms and controversial in terms of its implementation. The implementation of the policy was especially harsh in the early 1980s, notorious because of forced abortions, infanticide, and strict penalties. While the one child policy is widely carried out in China's cities, it has been more flexibly enforced in rural areas and in those portions of the country heavily populated by ethnic minority groups. Throughout the rural areas two and three children per couple are common; here also there is increased awareness of the need for population planning and a general willingness to have fewer children than was common in China in the past. Contraception is widely practiced throughout China in order to reduce pregnancies and widen the spacing between births. In many cases the so-called one-child policy can be best stated today as "One is best, two at most, but never a third."

Population Growth in China Today

Both the crude birth rate and the crude death rate declined significantly between 1949 and 1997, except for the early years of the 1960s. The success of China's population planning program is heralded by some because of the fact that as many as 200 million fewer Chinese were born as the program was implemented and gained popularity. Employing exhortation, incentives, and punishments, China's birth rate eventually declined to 1.03 percent in 1995, an extraordinarily low rate for a developing country. Still, because of the absolute size of the country's total population, there is a net increase of about one million each month, an annual gain of over 12,000,000 that equals the total population of New York City.