World population reaches one billion
- Date
- c. 1804
- Category
- Social & demographic
- Region
- Global (originating in north-western Europe)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Around 1804 the human population is generally estimated to have reached one billion for the first time, a milestone that marks the onset of the modern demographic transition. For most of history population had grown slowly, held in check by high mortality from famine, epidemic disease and war.
From the late eighteenth century, beginning in Scandinavia, Britain and France, regular death rates started to fall as nutrition, sanitation, water supply, transport and eventually vaccination improved, while birth rates initially remained high. The widening gap between falling deaths and persistently high births produced unprecedented rates of natural increase. Whereas it had taken the whole of human history to reach the first billion, the second billion would be reached in little more than a century. This acceleration underpinned almost every other development of the long nineteenth century: the labour supply for industrial cities, the surplus populations that fed mass transatlantic and indentured migration, the pressure on land and food systems, and the expansion of European settlement worldwide. The demographic transition began in the industrialising North Atlantic but would, over the following two centuries, spread to nearly every society on earth, reshaping the global balance of population.
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Empires active in c. 1804
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related social & demographic events
- The Great Irish Famine1845–1852
- Emancipation of the serfs in Russia3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
- Influenza pandemic of 1918–19201918–1920
- The Holocaust and the 'Final Solution'1941–1945
- Bengal Famine of 19431943–1944
- Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears1830–1839 (Indian Removal Act 28 May 1830; Cherokee Trail of Tears 1838–39)
Further reading
The wider story
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Global best-seller on how our species, its populations and societies remade the world.
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