Historical Urban Population Growth Data, Seto Lab, 1200 - 1950
Population in largest city, The World Bank, 1980 - 2015
The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE between the Egypt of Rameses II and the Hittites was a clash to determine supremacy in the Near East between the primary regional powers of the time. In the eastern Mediterranean, Mycenaean Greece had replaced Minoan Crete as the major maritime trading culture. In Europe Bronze Age civilization was characterized by a range of finely wrought artefacts, elaborate burial practices and evidence of long-distance trade. In the Pontic Steppes of Central Asia, chariot burials indicating mastery of equine warfare were well established, picked up by 1200 BCE in the Chinese Shang dynasty. In the Americas, hunter-gatherers were making the transition towards sedentary agricultural societies in certain favoured regions.
In the thirteenth century, the population of Paris reached 70,000. King Philip Auguste ordered the construction of the city walls and fortifications, and the population continued to increase, becoming the power center of the kingdom. The city’s trade and handicraft workshops were gradually concentrated on the right bank of the Seine and the market began to form. Most of the educational, academic and religious circles live on the left bank of the Seine. Despite civil wars, the plague, and foreign occupation, Paris became the most populous city in the Western world during the Middle Ages.
After the expulsion of the Mongols in 1368, the Ming Empire in China, with a standing army of a million troops and a population nearing 100 million, was probably the wealthiest and most powerful dominion worldwide. To the west, the empire of Timur was nearing the peak. Meanwhile, two of the most powerful unitary states, France and England were locked in a century of conflict. In Africa, the Songhai were overtaking the Malian Empire, and in the Americas, Inca and Aztec empires were nascent.The second plague pandemic started with the Black Death, which reached mainland Europe in 1348 and killed up to a half of the population of Eurasia in the next four years.
In 1328, Paris' population was about 200,000, which made it the most populous city in Europe. With the growth in population came growing social tensions. In January 1357, Étienne Marcel, the Provost of Paris, led a merchants' revolt using violence (such as the killing of the councillors of the dauphin before his very eyes) in a bid to curb the power of the monarchy and obtain privileges for the city and failed in 1358. After that, people suffered by the Bubonic plague and the wars. In the first epidemic of the plague in 1348-1349, forty to fifty thousand Parisians died, a quarter of the population. The plague returned in 1360-61, 1363, and 1366-1368. During the 16th and 17th centuries, plague visited the city almost one year out of three.
Afonso de Albuquerque, the ‘Caesar of the East’, established the lynchpins of Portuguese commerce in the Indian Ocean, crucially Malacca (1511) at the choke-point of the China trade, and Goa, which gave access to the wealthy Indian sub-continent. As a consequence, the Venetian control of the overland trade, via the Ottoman Empire, in spices, porcelain and silk became increasingly eclipsed. Initially, the British and Dutch attempted a similar circumvention, vainly seeking a Northwest Passage before muscling in through a series of trade wars, founding their respective East India Companies (1600–02). In the Americas, British privateers harried the Spanish treasure fleets, while vying for the Newfoundland fisheries with Basques and Bretons. The rise of centralized and commercially oriented nation states saw the decline of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic. In 1580, Spain annexed Portugal vitiating the latter’s imperial power, while Spain’s long war in the Netherlands resulted in Amsterdam supplanting Antwerp as the cardinal North Sea port.
The Hundred Years' War between the kingdom of England and France caused the decline of population in Paris has declined dramatically during this periods.
: In 1800, the European order dominated the world map with its rival. In 1800, the United States was independent . Europeans began to colonize Africa further. the British (1795–1802), had long been established as a way station for ships, trading in Asia. Britain had recently claimed Australia and the Chinese Qing dynasty, while still at its apogee, was uneasy about European possessions encroaching on its borders. China provided Europe with silk, tea and ceramics and was paid in silver and opium, eventually leading to the Opium Wars and partial colonization by the British and Portuguese.
At the beginning of the 17th century, King Henry IV of the time greatly expanded Paris. After that, under the reign of Louis XIV, France has become the most powerful country in the world, and Paris in the 18th century was the second-largest city in Europe, after London, with a population of about 600,000 people. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Paris was still expanding gradually, and a large amount of arable land was occupied by the city.
In 1800, the European order dominated the world map with its rival. In 1800, the United States claimed its independence. Europeans began to colonize Africa further. the British (1795–1802), had long been established as a way station for ships, trading in Asia. Britain had recently claimed Australia and the Chinese Qing dynasty, while still at its apogee, was uneasy about European possessions encroaching on its borders. China provided Europe with silk, tea and ceramics and was paid in silver and opium, eventually leading to the Opium Wars and partial colonization by the British and Portuguese.
The population has grew to 600,000 before the Revolution of 1789. Following the Reign of Terror, economic hardship and the emigration of the nobility, the 1801 census reported that the population had dropped to 546,856, but it quickly recovered to reach 622,636 in 1811.Paris was no longer the largest city in Europe; London passed it in population in about 1700, but it was by far the largest city in France, and throughout the 18th century grew at a rapid rate, largely by an immigration from the Paris basin and from the north and east of France.
During the agricultural and industrial revolutions in Europe, child life expectancy improved dramatically. The percentage of children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5 per cent in 1730-49 to 31.8 per cent in 1810-29. Europe’s population doubled to almost 200 million during the 18th century, and doubled again during the 19th century, thanks to improved living conditions and healthcare.
The culminating action in the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris led to French defeat and the establishment of the Paris Commune. On 3 January 1871, a final break-out was attempted in the Rueil area west of Paris, but the attack was easily repulsed. Food shortages meant that Parisians were forced to eat dogs, cats, rats and even zoo animals. German shells bombarded the city over 23 nights in January, leading to the death of 400 citizens. Paris capitulated on 28 January; French troops were disarmed, fortifications were surrendered and an indemnity of 200 million francs was paid to the Germans. Parisians also had to submit to the humiliation of a German victory march through the city. The first Industrial Revolution lead to a large number of labours gathering in Paris.
The second world war has caused huge damage all over the world. Lots of countries independent.The whole world are focused on the economic development which create the post-war booming phenomena.
The Second World War caused severe damage to Paris, and many citizens even lost their homes. To provide shelter for people, in just ten years, Paris has built a 10,000-hectare residential area in the suburbs, almost equal to the urban area. Because of the rush of construction, the equipment is poor and the living conditions are poor. It was under this circumstance that the French government made up its mind to start two large-scale planning and renovations for the Greater Paris area in 1961 and 1968 respectively. However, since 1970, the political and economic institutions of France, which had been excessively concentrated in the capital, were suspended, the development of Paris was suspended.
Following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Cold War tensions escalated as the US stepped up anti-Communist military strategies under President Ronald Reagan from 1981. This marked a stark reversal of the arms reductions during the period of détente in the 1970s. In 1979 the two global superpowers, the US and Soviet Union, signed a treaty following the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, agreeing to limit new missile and nuclear warhead developments. Although the nuclear threat was somewhat mitigated, proxy fighting through funded militia groups increased dramatically in this period as the Communist agenda was pushed across much of the developing world. Communist-backed guerrillas were highly active across South America, whilst many rebel groups of various political affiliations were backed by the US in countries that had experienced recent Communist revolutions. Communist China was increasingly at odds ideologically with the Soviet Union and assumed a more neutral (non-aligned) stance.
After the establishment of the Centre Pompidou in 1977 and the new shopping underground street, the construction of Paris has been new direction. In order to make the development of the eastern and western parts of Paris more balanced, in 1981, the top ten projects including the Bastille Opera House and the National Library, which began with the French government of Mitterrand, were completed at the end of 1996.
In the new century, internet and technology development has changed people’s life.The connection between countries gets more close. Terrorism has become new challenge for the whole world.
In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Metropolis of Grand Paris, with a population of 6.7 million. November 2015, Paris was experienced a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks that took place on 13 November 2015. More than 500 victims were involved into this attack, which cause huge shock in the world-wide.