The Earth’s surface has changed considerably over the past centuries. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1700s, humans from the “Old World” started to colonize the “New World”. The colonization processes lead to major changes in global land use and land cover. Large parts of the original land cover have been altered (e.g., deforestation), leading to extra emissions of GHG’s to the atmosphere and enhancing global climate change. The spatial and temporal aspects are still not very well known. More and more global integrated environmental assessments concerning global sustainability require long time series of global change indicators, of which population is an important one. This study presents an update of the geo-referenced historical population maps for the period 1700–2000, part of the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE), which can be used in integrated models of global change and/or global sustainability.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biraben, J-N. (1980). An Essay Concerning Mankind’s Evolution, Population, Selected Papers. December, Table 2.
Braudel (1981) Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuary Harper and Row New York 1981–1984
Braudel (1981). Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1981–19843 vols.
D. J. Bogue (1985) The Population of the United States, Historical Trends and Future Projections The Free Press New York
Cohen, J. (1996). How many people can the Earth support? Excerpt from Environmental Review Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 1. (http://www.environmentalreview.org/vo103/cohen.html)
W. M. Denevan (1992) ArticleTitleThe Pristine myth: The landscape of The Americas in 1492 Association of American Geographers 82 369–385
Durand, J. D. (1974). Historical Estimates of World Population: An Evaluation, University of Pennsylvania, Population Center, Analytical and Technical Reports, Number 10, Table 2.
J. D Durand (1977) ArticleTitleHistorial Estimates of World Population. Population and Developmental Review 3 IssueID3 253–296
Gazetteer, The (2004). The World Gazetteer, Current population figures for cities, towns and administrative divisions of all countries largest cities of the world, last visited june 2004, http://www.world-gazetteer.com/home.htm
Goudsblom J. & De Vries B. (Eds.) (2002). Mappae Mundi, Human Society and their Habitats in a Long-Term Socio-Economic Perspective. : Amsterdam University Press, p.368.
D. Grigg (1987) The industrial revolution and land transformation M.G.F.G.A. Wolman Fournier (Eds) Land Transformation in agriculture SCOPE 32, John Wiley & Sons Chichester, New York
Haub, C. (1995). How Many People Have Ever Lived on the Earth? Population Today.
Heilig, G. K. (1999). ChinaFood. Can China Feed Itself?. Laxenburg: IIASA(CD-ROM Version 1.1).
HYDE, History Database of the Global Environment, http://arch.rivm.nl/env/int/hyde
P. K. C. Liu K. S. Hwang (1979) Population change and economic development in mainland China since 1400. T.S. Hou C.M. Yu (Eds) Modern Chinese economic history. Academica Sinica Taipei
IPCC (2001). Climate Change 2001, The Scientific Basis. Interngovernmental Panel on Climate Change. : Cambridge University Press, p. 944.
Kapitsa, S. (1997). A model of world population growth as an experiment in systematic research. [Model’ rosta naseleniya zemli kak opyt sistemnogo issledovaniya.] . Moscow, Russia: Voprosy Statistiki, 46–57, In Russian.
Klein G. K., & Battjes, J. J. (1997). A Hundred Year (1890–1990) Database for Integrated Environmental Assessments (HYDE Version 1.1). National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Report 422514002, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Klein, G.K. (2001.). Estimating Global Land Use Change over the Past 300 Years: The HYDE Database: Global Biogeochemical Cycles 152417433.
Klein G. K., de Man, R., Meijer, J., & Wonink, S. (2004). The Environmental Assessment Agency 2004 World Regions and Subregions. National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), KMD Memo M001/04
Lahmeyer, J. (2004). Populstat database. Growth of the population per country in a historical perspective, including their administrative divisions and principal towns, http://www. library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/populhome.html
Lucas, D. (2003). Chapter 3, World Population Growth. Beginning Australian Population Studies, The Australian National University.
A. Maddison (1995) Monitoring the World Economy. OECD Development Centre Paris 1820–1992
A. Maddison (2003) The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective/Angus Maddison. Overseas Press New Delhi 384
Marland, G., Boden, T. A., & Andres, R. J. (2003). Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. Oak Ridge, TN., USA.: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy.
J. Matras (1973) Population and Societies Englewood Cliffs NJ, Prentice-Hall
McEvedy, C., & Jones, R. (1978). Atlas of World Population History, Facts on File. New York: pp. 342–351.
T.W. Merrick (1986) ArticleTitleWorld population in transition Population Bulletin 41 IssueID2 53
Mitchell B. R. (1993). International Historical Statistics, The Americas: 1750–1988, p. 817. Indianapolis, IN: MacMillan.
Mitchell, B. R. (1998a). International historical statistics Europe: 1750–1993, 4th Ed., In: MacMillan, Indianapolis, Ind. p. 959.
Mitchell, B. R. (1998b). International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia & Oceania: 1750–1993, 1113 pp, 3rd Ed. Indianapolis, IN: MacMillan
Oxford Economic Atlas of the World (1972). (4th ed.). London: Oxford University Press.
J. F. Richards (1990) Land transformation B.L. Turner (Eds) The Earth as Transformed by Human Action Cambridge Univ. Press New York 163–178
N. Sanchez-Albornoz (1974) The population of Latin America; a history. University of California Press Berkeley
Stern, D. I., & Kaufmann, R. K. (1996). Estimates of Global Anthropogenic Sulphate Emissions 1860–1993, Working paper series 9602, Centre for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA.
Tanton, J. H. (1995). End of the Migration Epoch, reprinted by The Social Contract. Vol. IV and V, No. 1.
Thomlinson, R. (1975). Demographic Problems, Controversy over Population Control. 2nd Ed., Table 1.
Tobler, W., Deichmann, U., Gottsegen, J., & Maloy, K. (1995). The global demography project, Tech. Rep. TR-95–6. Santa Barbara, California: National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).
G. L. Tuve (1976) Energy, Environment, Population, and Food. Wiley-Interscience New York 264
UN (1973). The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, Vol. 1. United Nations, New York.
UN (1992). Long-range World Population Projections: Two Centuries of Population Growth, 1950–2150, United Nations Population Division, New York.
UN (1996). United Nations, World Population Prospects, 1950–2050, The 1994 Revision, Rep. ST/ESA/SER.A/145, UN Population Division, New York.
UN (2000). United Nations Population Division, 1996 Revision of World Population Prospect. New York: UN Population Division.
UN (2002). United Nations Population Division, Briefing Packet, 1998 Revision of World Population Prospect. New York: UN Population Division.
UN (2003). Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision. UN Population Division: New York.
UN (2004). Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. World Population to 2300. ST/ESA/SER.A/236. New York
U.S. Bureau of Census, 2004. http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/. Last visited june 2004.
Wikipedia (2004). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Australia, last visited in june 2004.
Winkler Prins (1987). Winkler Prins encyclopedia, 19e druk,. Amsterdam.
Williams, M. (1990). Forests. B. L Turner et al. (Ed.) The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. New York: Cambridge University Press 179–202.
WRI (1987). World Resources Institute, World Resources, 1986–1987. New York: Basic Books.
WRI (2001). World Resources Institute, World Resources, 2000–2001. Washington, D.C
W. S. Woytinsky E. S. Woytinsky (1953) World Population and Production The Lord Baltimore Press New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Goldewijk, K.K. Three Centuries of Global Population Growth: A Spatial Referenced Population (Density) Database for 1700–2000. Popul Environ 26, 343–367 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-005-3346-7
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-005-3346-7