This is a list of countries by population in 1500. Estimate numbers are from the beginning of the year, and exact population figures are for countries that held a census on various dates in that year. The bulk of these numbers are sourced from Alexander V. Avakov's Two Thousand Years of Economic Statistics, Volume 1, pages 12 to 14, which cover population figures from the year 1500 divided into modern borders. Avakov, in turn, cites a variety of sources, mostly Angus Maddison.[1]
^Combined 17th-century population of Bali (600,000), half of Java (2,000,000), half of Borneo (200,000), one-third of Sumatra (223,000), and half of the Lesser Sunda Islands (300,000), plus several other minor islands and exclaves.
^Only about 1/3 of Ireland was under the English Crown in 1500 (through direct control by the crown, such as The Pale, or through the Anglo-Irish Lords).
^Angus Maddison, 2003, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Vol. 2, OECD, Paris. (2008, ggdc.net)
^Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, John King Fairbank, Albert M. Craig (1960) A history of East Asian civilization, Volume 1. East Asia: The Great Tradition, George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Gives a differing figure of 125 million, compared to Avakov's 103 million.
^Yi, Zhongtian (November 2007). The End of the Empire. Fudan University Press. p. 254.
^The combined population of Germany (12m), Austria (2m), Czechia (2.16m), Belgium (1.4m), the Netherlands (0.95m), Switzerland (0.65m), Slovenia (0.208m), and a third of Italy (3.5m); does not include the Empire's various now-French territories such as Franche-Comté (6,300 square miles, ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy), the départements of Nord and Pas-de-Calais (4,800 square miles together, part of the Habsburg Netherlands), Alsace (3,200 square miles), the County of Nice (1,500 square miles, ruled by the Savoyards), or core Savoy itself (4,000 square miles, ruled by the Savoyards). Avakov, p. 12-13.
^Belgium (1,400,000) plus the Netherlands (950,000) plus Luxembourg, not counting the bits of modern France and Germany that were then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. Avakov, p. 12-13.
^Behar, Cem, ed. 1996. Osmanlı Đmparatorluğu'nun ve Türkiye'nin nüfusu, 1500–1927. Ankara: T.C. Basbakanlık Devlet Đstatistik Enstitüsü = State Institute of Statistics Prime Ministry Republic of Turkey.
^(a) Jean-Noël Biraben, "The History of the Human Population From the First Beginnings to the Present" in "Demography: Analysis and Synthesis: A Treatise in Population" (Eds: Graziella Caselli, Jacques Vallin, Guillaume J. Wunsch) Vol 3, Chapter 66, pp 5–18, Academic Press, San Diego (2005). (b) Jean-Noël Biraben, "An Essay Concerning Mankind's Evolution", Population, Selected Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 1–13 (1980). (c) Jean-Noël Biraben, "Essai sur l'évolution du nombre des hommes", Population Vol. 34 (no. 1), pp. 13–25 (1979).
^Avakov, p.12; the figure is 8.183 million for all of modern European Russia, including the steppe and Caucasian polities that were not under the Grand Duchy of Moscow's control. Natalia Gorskaya (1994) in "Историческая демография России эпохи феодализма: итоги и проблемы изучения" (in Russian), p. 93-96, gives the Grand Duchy a population of 5.8 million in 1500.