Factors involved that makes India and China one of the most densely populated countries on earth
India and China are the most populated because to maintain large populations, you need to mainly have:
- Fertile soil
- Portable Water
- Comfortable climate.
- Rice cultivation
- Natural protection
- Advancement in medical sciences
1: Clean water
Taking about the availability of clean water, here is the map of major rivers across the world:
Major rivers were present all over the world, but the thing is the rivers in North America and Europe were in freezing environments and it was not possible to do large scale agriculture due to climatic conditions, and the rivers in South America, Sub Sahara Africa as well as southern Africa were in the rainforest environment — which is not good for agriculture. [1]
When it comes River Nile and Tigris, they did have water but they were in deserts and deserts do not have fertile soil and good climate which makes them not able to sustain high populations. Even though civilizations in Egypt, Iraq, and other parts of the middle east flourished, they didn’t have a large population compared to India and China and unlike Egypt and the middle east which mostly had one river whereas India and China had multiple rivers. India had Ganga, and Brahmaputra rivers and China had Yangtze and Huang He rivers and if you see it today, the population density is larger in those places where these rivers flow.
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2: Arable land:
The second aspect as to why they are more populated is the availability of arable land, India has one of the most arable lands in the world where 50.7% of the land in India was cultivable.[2]China also has a large amount of land which is cultivable, especially the traditional china land where the ancient Chinese population thrived.[3]
Of course, the percentage of arable land is less than 20% in China but that is because of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia which is a largely cold deserts. This explains why these regions have very less population density compared to other parts of China. Russia has mostly harsh climates which make growing crops challenging. USA and Brazil were discovered much later (around the 14th century) and the land required to cultivate was formed around the 17th century whereas India and China have civilizations as old as 4000 years so the land which was required for agricultural purposes was discovered much earlier in India and China compared to USA and Brazil which was discovered much later.
Even by the area of land, Asia has one of the largest arable lands compared to other continents.
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3: Comfortable Climate
The third aspect is climate, Locations with favorable climates tend to be more densely populated as food can be produced, and it provides a more comfortable environment to live in. Areas with extreme climates such as hot and cold deserts make it difficult to grow crops and access water. China and India had favorable climatic conditions which made population growth easier.
Places which has humid subtropical and humid continental have large population density compared to the other regions of these countries.
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4: Natural Protection
India and China had one of the best natural protection which protected them from invasions and warfare coming from far-off countries/continents. India has the Himalayas in the northeastern part of the country and Deserts in the western part of the country and it made invasions difficult. Even though India was invaded multiple times from the northwest, but that region actually helped in blocking many more invasions before the invaders finally advanced their war machinery to invade the country.
China had Gobi desert in the northwest, cold Siberian deserts in the north, Tibetan plateau in the southwest, and cold desert in present-day Xinjiang province and these natural barriers acted as a barrier against invasions.
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5: Rice cultivation
Regions that had rice cultivation in their civilization also tend to have higher population densities. Rice provides a higher amount of calories, nutrients, and fats required for the development of the body. It is also easier to grow compared to many other crops.
To cultivate rice crops, there is a requirement for a large amount of manpower because it is a labor-intensive job. It requires larger families to harvest which encourages people to have more children. Places like India, China, and some parts of Asia where rice crops were produced have one of the highest population densities. [4] But whereas in Europe, there was no stable crop like rice which is the reason why it was less populated. Only after the 17th century when Europe started importing rice did their population soar.
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6: Advancement in medical sciences
This was probably one of the important reasons why the population soared. In the 19th century, the world population reached 1 billion, and since then the population only soared in most of the world. The main reason for this is: that the rise of large-scale agriculture using industries translated to families being much larger than past. This led to societies being more complex, with more people who then congregated together to form towns, suburbs, and metro cities.
To sum it up, the availability of fertile soil, perennial rivers, a comfortable climate along with advancements in technologies contributed to the growth of the population.
Footnotes:
[1] https://www.wildmadagascar.org/overview/rainforests2.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country
