Essay On Java Population Growth

The Population Growth- the Population Explosion in Java in the Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century, there was a rapid increase in population from circa nine hundred million in eighteen hundred to about one point six billion in nineteen hundred (Mcneill, 222). A possible reason for the massive growth is the improvement in communication and transport, contributing to less varies of diseases in a community and more dispersal of food corps (Mcneill, 222). According to the Demographic Theory, founded by Thompson in 1929, a rapid increase in population occurs as follows: First the mortality rate decreases, and is then followed by the decline in fertility rate. As the death rate falls more rapidly and earlier, first a fast increase in population occurs, followed by a stationary population (Kirk, 361). However, there is an exception in that time period: Java (Owen, 71). Java is an island in Indonesia, and during the nineteenth century a ‘population explosion’ occurred, incomparable to Asian or

Java is an island, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean in Indonesia. During the period of time it was colonized by the Netherlands, except for a short time under French and then British control, and aimed to export a great amount of crops (White 225). Because of the dept, a consequence of the British occupation, the Dutch Commissionaires had the pressure of establishing a solid market, contributing to a great amount of changes on the island, such as closing the hand craft market and replace it by mass products from Europe (White, 225). Caused by the Dutch influence during the period of question, most scholars argue, the population growth occurred because of them. As a matter of fact, the annual growth in Java was probably above 2 per cent in the nineteenth century (Peper, 71) and appeared to be thirty million in 1901, being similar to very dense areas in China and Indonesia (Hirschman,