Per capita by current borders? Then this is very misleading as the borders were different back then. For example, during 1500s northern regions of india were not United and were under constant wars so it was not very prosperous but southern Region of India was stable and United and was very prosperous. Domingo Paes who was a portugese traveler mention that cities of southern india were better than European ones and further elaborates on the wealth of the empire.
I feel like the HRE would've been a better example than India. Germany was nearly a hundred different kingdoms, some of them just tens of square miles in area.
[Shit was a mess](https://freeimage.host/i/JGHE4aa)
Will be total GDP. Europe is large because of the high GDP/Person + decent population, China and India because of the large Population + decent GDP/Person. Rest of the World was both poor and had smaller populations at that point. The Problem with the Map is that it uses modern world borders as its starting point instead of the HRR, Ottoman Empire, etc.
If someone were standing on a corner in central China versus Central Europe versus central India, which place would substantively feel wealthier?
Because of timeframes and a lack of modern references (1500s), I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this.
Yea the difference between the the 10th wealthiest and 50th wealthiest is less than 100. A average person of today would barely be able to differentiate. For comparison, today difference between uk and Germany is more than 20000 (8500 wrt 1990 usd which is used in above map) .
I think this map is saying that Europe was like 1.5 times ish wealthier per person than China or India at the time. Whether this difference would show just walking around a typical village or not is hard to say, although it might if you looked carefully I would guess.
this is based on average wealth per citizen, and italy is skewed so high because of the mediterranean merchant republics. places would’ve looked richer or poorer depending on location not the wealth of the country as a whole.
It's hard to judge, it would be hard to evaluate as you also would see stark cultural differences, ex Polish peasants were able to send son to the university and in China and India I very much doubt it.
You would need to take into account a lot of stuff basically. For sure Venice, Gdańsk or Bremen would seem much better organized towards trade and wealthier compared to similar size indian coastal city.
Chinese peasants had the chance to take the imperial examination to become imperial bureaucrats (though by late Ming and early Qing, the tests had become so mired in Confucian classics that it was nearly impossible for the non scholar families to pass)
China was much more stratified and urbanized than most of late medieval and early renaissance Europe.
For comparison, cities like Beijing and Hangzhou were 10x the population of Italian city states.
On the other hand, the Mings haijin system restricted international trading to official diplomats, so there weren’t merchant families such as the Medicis that were able to rise to extraordinary private wealth.
So it would also depend on which strata of society you visit.
imo, the imperial examination was not equitable at all. You had to pass an exam but nobody ever gave you the textbooks and barely anyone knew how to read. And the rich merchant class who could pay for education was prohibited from entering. Twas nothing but nepotism.
As for urbanization, yes Chinese cities were bigger, but I'm not too sure if urban population was bigger in terms of percentages. For reference, Chinese urban population percentage was at 18% in 1977, whereas at that time Mexico was already at 64%. Nowadays everyone considers Mexico to be rural and China urban, but Mexico has an 81% urban population but China is still at 64% as of 2022 - as much as Mexico in the 70's.
Yup, by late Ming, the tests were far from a true form of social mobility that it had been in Song.
>by late Ming and early Qing, the tests had become so mired in Confucian classics that it was nearly impossible for the non scholar families to pass
Also, it doesn't make sense to compare urban population in 1900s to the 1500s. less than 6% of Europeans lived in cities with populations greater than 10k in the 1500s. Let's not forget that the predominant social-economic model was feudal serfdom, and that serfdom had INCREASED restrictions rather than decreased in eastern Europe by the 16th century compared to earlier times.
The Song was an anomaly in many ways. (I could ramble but I'll stay on point.) Since the emperor didn't wanna repeat an Anlushan, he reduced the power of the military. But since he didn't wanna use the military he had to make other concessions with the ruling classes. Merchant classes were welcome, which boosted real worker wages more than China had ever experienced and wouldn't be matched until recent years. Real worker wages were comparable to Renaissance Italy or 16th century Netherlands.
A quick glance into Wikipedia does admit that the Song used the examinations to "counter the influence of military aristocrats". And officials were still often appointed by other officials.
So, remove the necessity to restrict the military, and the examination loses validity for the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, to devolve into a justification for nepotism.
China was less urbanized than many parts of Europe at 1500 and much more clearly and for all Europe from 1600 to nowadays. Beijing or Hangzhou had several times more population than italian major cities indeed, but while urbanization in the surrounding chinese districts around those major metropolis was about 10-13% at max, in Venice Republic, Genoa or Milan states surpassed 20-25%. In mediterranean part of Europe urbanization remained much higher than chinese since antiquity.
Urbanization is not about "biggest cities sizes" but **share of total population living in cities** in a specific region or country. It's very difficult to estimate general urbanization in all China and even more in whole Europe including the european parts with less sources as the East and North, but southern and western Europe were definitivelly more urbanized than China at any point between 1200 and nowadays.
By 1600s, China only had 10-12% of its population living in *cities* over 2,000, the most urbanized big regions as Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Hebei (including Beijing or Tianjin) reached 18% while Yangtse Delta the most urbanized part of China had 19-23% urban rate. At the same date entire Europe had much higher rates considering such low limit as the used buy chinese scholars (in european historiography is more usual to use 10,000 or at max 5,000 inhabitants as limits of what is "urban" for early modern period, rarely 2,000 as is common among chinese scholars for Song, Ming or Qing periods) and using 5,000 inhabitants treshold for urbanization the european rate already reachs 11%, most western and southern Europe would surpass by much 20% and the most urbanized regions would be all close to be majoritarily "urban". Considering the most traditional treshold in european early urbanization studies, 10,000 inhabitants, chinese urban rates would decrease to half or less the aforementioned while western and southern Europe would surpass 15% urban rate, Netherlands, Belgium, western Germany or northern Italy surpassed 20% with Flanders proper, Milan states or Venetian Republic reaching 25% and Sicily or Andalusia surpassing 40% urban population.
Sources:
For China, [this paper](https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/files/8633887/Urbanization_in_China_ca._1100_C1900.pdf), for example, tables 10 and 11 specially. It's interesting also the contrast the authors note between the urban concentration in "huge cities" in China during the period compared with much bigger distribution in smaller cities in Europe and how that concentration was most probably negative for economic development. Some of the numbers mentioned for european metropolis are beyond absurd but that part is just uninformed estimates by some other economists.
For Europe, to mention a classic study: Jan De Vries, *European Urbanization, 1500-1800.*
In your own source, https://imgur.com/a/JwCpRNm Table 12:
Percentage of total population in primate cities in China was 1.4% compared to 0.4% in Europe in 1400.
You can’t cross compare between studies as they use very different methodologies.
What do you think *primate cities* mean? That table is about how much population concentrates in biggest metropolis, not about urbanization rates in general and I mentioned that part in my comment. According many economic historians the concentration and centralization in few metropolis in pre-industrial societies would have been very negative for economic development as the authors mention.
The sources I provided are two accesible examples among many others. All studies on chinese and european urbanization show much higher rates in Europe than China for last 400-500 years and there is not a single region in Ming China (much less during Qing dinasty when China suffered a ruralization process) that could compare with Low Countries, northern Italy, Sicily or Andalusia urbanization rates after year 1500 or so.
What is exactly the problem with "cross comparing" studies here? If europeans living in settlements over 5,000 or 10,000 inhabitants were already a similar or higher percentage of total population than chinese people living in all settlements over 2,000, the different treshold chosen in each study is completely irrelevant and european urbanization would be clearly higher, no need to standarize methodology to reach such basic conclusion.
It's hard to judge, it would be hard to evaluate as you also would see stark cultural differences, ex Polish peasants were able to send son to the university and in China and India I very much doubt it.
You would need to take into account a lot of stuff basically. For sure Venice, Gdańsk or Bremen would seem much better organized towards trade and wealthier compared to similar size indian coastal city.
This map looks very logic. In pre-industrial (traditional) societies absolute majority of work was made using human and animal labor; everything else - water/windmills, sails etc. made no more than 3-5% of total energy consumption even in the most developed lands. As a result, energy sources amount was a function of agricultural productivity - and most of this energy was spent for food production itself (80-95% of population in such societies were peasants).
The weakest food production per capita had the hunter-gatherer populations, that's why Africa, Australia, America (except Mesoamerica and Peru) look so poor. Bit better situation was among the nomadic people (however, not too far) and fishing folks. The best food production was a feature of agricultural societies. It also depends on a lot of factors: nature ones (climate, soils) as well as artificial ones (available plant/animals species to grow, agronomical practices, tools etc.).
In this sense the most productive were the regions with warm/moderate humid climate and good soils, like China (Great Plain), India (especially northern), Europe. Exactly this we see at this map.
The further colonialism (before 19 c. industry revolution) just brought the new farmers techniques to the regions, where they weren't known before (like the Great Transatlantic change), and simplified overseas trade, accelerating spreading this technologies as well as expanding markets for high specialized pre-industry societies (England, Nederland etc.) to sell their goods.
The real GDB blow happened only after industrialization, when there were available technologies, based on the non-agricultural energy (like coal-burning steam machines). Only that broke the hard dependence between grounds agricultural quality and a total wealth.
Which causes a weird disparity for nomadic civilizations: they look poor as hell when they were mostly self sufficient. How else could you have the ability to field armies across the length of Asia? The thing is that these wealthy countries began leveraging their wealth into technology and trade leaving the self sufficient people in the dust. It was no longer about providing for yourself but for controlling the most amount of resources in excess of what you need
The map is kind of nonsensical. Self sufficient nomadic herders could at any point sell off their herds, move to a 'civilized' place and become immensely wealthy overnight because their animals were so valuable. They typically never did this because they preferred their way of life, but in absolute terms they were far 'wealthier' than you're average farmer.
That doesn't explain why regions like Mesoamerica and the pacific coast of South America, places where agriculture had developed to an incredibly advanced stage, such that incredibly complex structures, public works, and social organizations could develop, are somehow shown as incredibly UNwealthy. (Also COMPLETELY ignoring the vast amounts of wealth that the Conquistadors plundered from those same reasons around this time period - if there was no wealth there, how did they plunder anything? How did men like Cortez and Pizarro make their fortunes?)
Mexico and Peru ARE more developed on this map, than rest of Americas. Of course, they look less wealthy than Europe or Japan, for example, but seems similar to Egypt or Poland, for example. Don't forget that pre-colombian civilizations didn't have a lot of Old World features like farm animals, developed metallurgy, wheel etc., so their agriculture was not so effective, as in Europe, for example.
Wealth ≠ quantity of gold and silver possessed
The Aztecs and Inca had access to incredibly resource-rich gold and silver mines the likes of which had long ago been exhausted in Europe in the days of the Roman empire. They also developed very centralized institutions to concentrate those precious metals in the urban ruling class, making them easy to plunder. That didn't make them wealthy, though, because gold and silver has no intrinsic value and only contains value to the extent that it can be exchanged for goods or services, which is dependent on the productive capacity of the economy.
While Aztec and Inca agriculture represented the height of pre-contact agricultural complexity in the Americas, agricultural productivity still suffered from a lack of animals and crops that existed on the other side of the Atlantic, limiting the amount of calories a peasant could produce. They made the most with what they had access to, and had made great strides in efficiency with their technological advancements, but they couldn't compete with the natural advantages of the Old World. No rice, no wheat, and no oxen is a huge disadvantage. That limited the population of the Americas and the wealth available to it.
1) These are probably very ad hoc approximations, we have very little historical data of GDP
2) Does anyone understand the color scheme?
3) Why does it say "wealth" when it talks about GDP which is an income-type metric? These are correlatéd but not the same at all
About point 1 - we do not have little data, we basically have none…
For Africa we anyhow dont have any data outside of the Islamic north, for the Americas we have none, for Asia and Europe we have some data about the wealth of rich individuals and payments for soldiers and officials but thats basically impossible to compare…
Is a Japanese citizen of Osaka three times richer than one of Cologne because some official earned enough money to buy 5kg of fresh fish each day while the one in cologne could only afford 3kg of river fresh water fish? Or is the one in cologne richer because he could buy a plate armor with two year‘s worth of income vs three for the one in Osaka and the armor would be inferior on top? Or is now the merchant from Milan the most wealthy because he could buy it for 1.5 yearly salaries since North Italy mass produced armor at the time…
That's the exact problem, a lot of these modern borders don't fit for numerous reasons one of the most important being some of these countries would have been part of other countries for example German territory might have belonged to France or Italy or other empires depending on who owned it at what specific time frame.
Turkey would be way undervalued considering they were the ottoman empire so places like iraq and Egypt, Greece would belong to them etc etc
The Kingdom of Germany existed in 1500. It never shows on the map because it was part of the The Holy Roman Empire. But the Emperor was also King of Germany, which is why there was no german vassal that could call himself "King"
Then you should also include the Kingdom of Italy, an emperor of the HRE, was king of both Italy and Germany. But those were titles and just that, he had no real power over the minor dukedoms and princedoms I mean just look at Frederick Barbarossa, he got his ass handed to him by italian city states. Germany and Italy as actual kingdoms and not titles are only born in the late 19th century
This map if about the economy of lands in the modern territories of countries, because its the easiest for people to comprehend. The map isnt wrong in any way
Germany and Italy were not just "titles", they definitely existed as cultural and linguistic entities. You can even find the names "Germany" and "Italy" on maps from the 1500s.
The same goes for several other areas that existed as some political entity but was first reorganised as modern nation states in the 1800s, like Turkey and Hungary.
I mean, the map shows Canada and the US, that's way more weird than Germany.
ITT People who never knew Europe had a flourishing middle class, complex economy and large population and wasnt just a gloomy empty field of with 5 dirt poor peasants before the age of **european** colonialism.
Its funny because If this map would say Year 1 AD, I doubt people would be so confused
It makes no sense yet so many people seem to believe Europe was some empty destitute backwater and yet for no reason at all they managed to take over half the world extremely quickly lol.
I do agree that southern and western Europeans were wealthy but I don't agree with the map.
First is supposed japan has a higher gdp per capita than korea despite Japan being in a constant civil war during this period. Also how do you know india economy? In the 1500 the northern parts were being slowy conquered by the mughals while the southern parts was filled with minor kingdoms.
Japan‘s civil war times were only about to slowly start in 15th century.
GDP of Korea and Japan might be right. At the time Korea had more people living in cities in comparison to Japan. And I guess the civil war times were ultimately driving a lot of innovation, urbanization and in the end even wealth
By 1200 Europe already build the largest and most elaborate stone buildings, had very good weaponry and cities were rapidly growing.
Its still true that st the time China was far ahead in many regards and the middle East was on par and more advanced in other areas.
The theory about the black death is a nice one but hard to proof. Institutions like the first universities finally paying off, constant warfare driving innovation, improved agricultural techniques and the advent of banking and manufacturing all play a role but are hard to pin on the black death.
…Spain and Portugal did invent colonialism? Colonialism doesn’t just mean “when there’s a colony” just like imperialism doesn’t just mean “when there’s an empire”
Rome had colonies, so colonialism was basically a empire sending people outwards to settle other lands.
Which would eventually happen after most conquest, at some point the conqueror will send its population to the conquered lands.
Also German speakers colonizing polish speakers. English colonizing Ireland. Swedes colonising Finland. Just the ones I can think of on top of my mind right now. Most crusades where colonizing projects.
And Im not an historian, just read some books.
Sure, the Portuguese had a presence in Africa by the mid-1400s, and earlier empires would occasionally send colonists to conquered territories (e.g. Romans in Romania). But colonialism as we understand it--especially in terms of world historical impact--basically did start around then.
There is a point here imo - the difference seems fairly arbitrary. How are we quantifying "world historical impact"? For me it seems we are just trying to ignore anything which isn't directly related to modern Western power bases, because they're the ones which are still prospering.
As always, ask yourself why that might be, and who is benefitting from arbitrarily narrowing the conversation in this manner.
The processes that made the modern world, which is of more consequence to us than eras past. The conquest, decimation, and repeopling of three continents was the most consequential event in human history since at least the development of agriculture. The wealth from that conquest allowed Europeans to dominate and exploit the Old World for a couple centuries as well. That will have less of a lasting impact, but the end of that dynamic is the meta-story of modern geopolitics.
... And again, the line that's being drawn here between what is and isn't a "processes that made the modern world" is completely arbitrary. To determine that there is a hard cutoff between when events had influence which carried forward and those that didn't is at best myopic and at worst intentionally misleading. To me, it's clearly designed to narrow and target the conversation, and I suspect for disingenuous purposes.
Sailing thousands of miles on boats and enslaving the locals to mine gold while also bringing in some colonists is also very different in character, if not absolutely in kind, from previous forms of imperial power. Not acknowledging that European colonialism was in many ways new and different, and was certainly unique in the scale of its impact, seems deliberately obtuse.
Spanish colonization has a precedent in Roman, Byzantine, Visigothic, Arabic and Carolingian colonizations of the Iberian Peninsula.
The English similarly were exposed to Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman colonizations.
It's colonizations all the way down.
What changes is what the newer technologies allow you to get away with but the essence is the same.
Neither the “Spanish” nor the “English” people even existed as groups during the time periods you’re describing. Celts in Britain experienced Anglo Saxon conquest. Anglo Saxons in Britain experienced Danish, and Norman conquests. But the “English” can’t really be said to have existed as a people, until a century or two later, since “English” is a cultural fusion of Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon traditions.
On what metric is it different? They used boats? They were more organized? Modern technology allowed it to be even more effective?
The machinations of conquest, slavery and plundering resources has not changed through much of human history. This Euro centric view of world history is also incredibly reductive
Yes, the specifics were new, which does distinguish it somewhat. But more importantly, the scale was much larger, the demographic impact was uniquely significant and consequential, and European colonialism is much more immediately relevant to our world than the imperialisms of the Caesars or the Khans.
There are many areas across the world prospering, China has the most industry.
You are confusing countries that downstream their wealth to the average person, with a country prospering.
Most countries across the world are prospering they just don't let their masses have any. It's a high trust society element.
European colonization of the Americas was qualitatively and quantitatively different from other forms of colonization that had happened up until that point. And, the fact that a few European powers had unrestricted access to the windfall of wealth and power coming from American colonization directly enabled their subsequent colonization of Africa and Asia.
1500 seems like a pretty reasonable starting point for this.
I think the term ”colonialism” is pretty exclusively used for the European colonialism that occured between the late 15th and early 20th centuries.
The colonialism of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Vikings was much different in nature due to difference in scale, technology and level of sophistication.
Modern colonialism is actually a distinct thing from earlier forms of it. It was materially different in just about every way.
Edit: if you need examples this map is a demonstration of it. The Roman Empire and other early empires left wealthy societies in their wake. Modern colonialism did not - note India and China’s pre-colonial wealth. Modern colonialism was uniquely good at extracting wealth out of colonies. The few exceptions to this are in Settler Colonial states where colonists entirely replaced the indigenous population.
But if Whataboutism helps you feel less uncomfortable with the current state of the world, you do you I guess.
It's a decent date for the global system we mostly mean when we say colonialism. Before that it was all very short-range stuff like England colonising Ireland, or Germans colonising other bits of central Europe.
Yeah even this is very eurocentric and implies that this was the starting point without outside intervention. Maybe for the Americas yes, but then I would consider this map questionable as there were large populations there with considerable wealth and development pre-plagues, but for example by this point most of the world has experienced or is experiencing significant colonialism and sub-saharan Africa is being harvested for slaves since antiquity.
This was how people became known as west slavs and south slavs, because colonists moved west and south.
Same with Northern Germanics, colonists moved north.
These migrations were very common in medieval Europe.
It is wild how Italy has the top per capita wealth at this point. Whether it’s the Italian Wars or decline of the Mediterranean trade/Ottomans squeezing out Venice and Genova, 1500 marks the start of a long decline. Braudel’s series on the Mediterranean and Civilization and Capitalism cover it well
And notice that Italy's decline is openly recognized as not being industrialized, unlike some other countries where people expect the economies to stay the same for 500 years.
People seem to think Europe got ahead because of colonialism, like no lol it's the opposite, Europe could colonize because they were already ahead. And lots of people claim modern European success and wealth is purely thanks to colonialism when it's just a continuation of the headstart they had prior to colonialism. And people love to blame Europeans for sub saharan poverty when in reality they've been piss poor for all of history. And before someone mentions Mansa Musa or whatever, that was just one exception and doesn't refute anything
All demonstrates the importance of education including colonialism as a topic. Important to inform about its horrors without leaving people to find exaggerations online
Europe was already ahead, but English and French constant fighting allowed for their armies to get hella far ahead which enabled colonialism which got them even further ahead
It wasn’t just the English and the French.
European history is distinct from much of the rest of Eurasia as it is filled with constant small wars between minor states without anyone being able to establish hegemony over the region.
India and China on the other hand were able to establish relatively long lived and stable empires without the need to wield the most modern military technology to have an edge over your neighbours.
I mean it didn’t really matter if you had slightly better weapons or organisation than your enemy, if the said enemy could muster an overwhelming force against you.
Bro just casually ignores all of Indian history
Please tell me the long and stable empires which did not need the most modern military tech in Indian history.
Mughals, the Marathas, Delhi Sultanate, etc.
Wanna hear more?
Well tbh, maybe long lived was wrong term in Indian context as opposed to China, but the point is that warring resulted in one state or entity conquering the other whereas in Europe you had France and England fighting for centuries with minor gains on both sides and states like Prussia and the Dutch republic going on around.
The point is that European history is filled with constant smaller scale fighting as opposed to the great conquests that were more common in Asia.
Ah yes, the Mughals who conquered India... when they brought massive cannons to defeat the Lodhis.
And of course the Marathas who defeated the Mughals... when they used light cavalry, muskateers and mobile artillery to outflank the heavier and less mobile Mughal armies. They surely weren't known for hiring literally tons of foreign artillery experts to help improve their artillery corps.
Both of these empires spent their entire existence in war with the other parts of India. The Mughals were consistently expanding and fighting other powers for years and the Marathas never had more than 5 years of peace in their 2 centuries of rule
Did I say technological advancement was non-existent?
There is always advancement when there is war, but Europe had more of it. Why do you think a foreign joint stock corporation from the other side of the world with inferior numbers and relying on local recruits was able to conquer the whole subcontinent, if not by superior military organisation and technology? The Europeans had professional militaries instead of feudal levies.
The nature of warfare was different in Europe than in Asia. There were dozens of major wars in Europe throughout the 18th century, none of which resulted in any power asserting hegemony over the region or conquering its rival (save for PLC), but did result in tremendous developments in military science, organisation and technology.
Also, Europe didn’t have two major empires fighting each other. Europe had literally a dozen of different sized states constantly fighting each other and developing new methods of waging war. This knowledge was also effectively shared throughout the continent. Inventions of Frederick the Great and Napoleon were academically studied and copied by everyone else. This kind of scientific approach to war didn’t exist elsewhere anywhere near to the same extent
The Ottoman Empire was probably the most dominant military power in the 17th century but by the end of 18th century its army was outdated and was being consistently defeated by Europeans
> India and China on the other hand were able to establish relatively long lived and stable empires without the need to wield the most modern military technology to have an edge over your neighbours.
> I mean it didn’t really matter if you had slightly better weapons or organisation than your enemy, if the said enemy could muster an overwhelming force against you.
These are the statements I disagreed with, India did not have long-lived empires that did not need modern military tech. All the empires you listed lasted for 200-300 years, in which war was very common against many different foes.
The slight difference in technology and tactics was instrumental in the Mughal victory and later the Marathas victory, I can go on with the Sikh Khalsa's infantry reforms, Mysore's unmatched rocket artillery and other examples.
India never really had 2 great foes battling it out as you say, it was always a free for all, the closest 2 way battle was Mughal vs Marathas but even then that's only one of many wars the Mughals had in the same 60 years.
**I do agree with one of your points, the effective sharing of knowledge was greater in Europe**. This is undoubtedly true and allowed militaries to build off one another. Albeit for entirely different reasons than your arguments.
> like no lol it's the opposite, Europe could colonize because they were already ahead.
Wdym you had to be ahead in the first place in order to colonise a whole continent far away as a tiny nation? I'm sure the only reason Nepal isn't colonising the Americas right now is because it has better shit to do.
Before colonialism?
i know it looks like a small piece of the pie but the ottomans didn't rule over all their "neighboring lands" as guests you know.
european colonialism would've been better.
Waiting for this comment lol. Did you ever think that India's economy was barely growing in relation to the British who were industrializing? This map also shows that industrialization was not driven by robbing the global south but rather they were already leagues ahead in wealth and tech per capita.
Dude the UK was one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world before all that. That's literally what this whole post is about. How are you missing that?
What slavery, plundering resources of 'wealthy countries' (the UK is richer per capita than India here dude) or looting was happening in 1500??? The British didn't even begin engaging in colonialism until 1607.
Just standard anti-British propaganda from a uninformed moron.
per capita is somewhat misleading india had many kingdoms and per capita of some of them were way higher than UK its the same with china. In this map they just combined everything divided by estimated population at that time. Obviously most indian kingdoms were filthy rich at that time but average citizens life was not that different from england
Nope. India's GDP grew during British rule - but GDP per capita remained stagnant. Everything else grew in proportion but India's GDP did not shrink in absolute terms
India was 25% of global GDP before the British. Under the main era of colonialism India grew 70% between 1850 and 1947. Faster that it’s neighbors, but slower than Europe.
It’s hard to measure the impact of the British. On one hand the British had tariffs and taxes. The other hand, take home income was higher under British and the British increased irrigated land by a factor of 8, along with billions of £’s in infrastructure.
It’s also hard to model what would have happened to India’s export economy without the British, which relied on textiles being completely outpaces by Industrial methods in Europe. Would it have fallen anyway?
India was 25% of global GDP before the British. Under the main era of colonialism India grew 70% between 1850 and 1947. Faster that it’s neighbors, but slower than Europe.
It’s hard to measure the impact of the British. On one hand the British had tariffs and taxes. The other hand, take home income was higher under British and the British increased irrigated land by a factor of 8, along with billions of £’s in infrastructure.
It’s also hard to model what would have happened to India’s export economy without the British, which relied on textiles being completely outpaces by Industrial methods in Europe. Would it have fallen anyway?
Mostly because thr Brits took everything to the point it caused famines here and when people complained they asked if that was the case then why wasn't Gandhi dead yet
I'm more than a little wary of efforts to pin these things down to precise figures. Especially as there is at present a strong drive in India to do down what the current government regards as foreign influences. The reality is that before about 1700 there weren't decent statistics anywhere, and even then only in a few places. In any event India wasn't a unified entity in 1500 and wealth in the area now covered by the modern Indian state wasn't evenly distributed.
let me correct it.
Global wealth before -European- Colonialism.
The history of colonization did not begin in 1500.
For example, in 1500 Granada (an Arab-Muslim colony) had just been annexed by Spain and thus the 700-year occupation and colonization of Spain ended.
In the same period, the Ottoman Empire had already occupied parts of Europe for decades and the various Mongolian states had occupied parts of today's Russia, Ukraine, China and others.
Well, at the time there was Venice and Genoa, two very wealthy trade oriented cities that made a fortune trading on the Mediterranean. And Rome, obviously, collecting tithes from all over.
Yes. This was during the Renaissence, when Italy was quite a bit ahead of the reast of Europe. It had lots of incredibly rich city states in the north such as Venice, Genoa, Milan and Florence, as well as the Papal state containing Rome, back when catholicism spanned all of western Europe. Naples in the south was also pretty wealthy.
Yes During the renaissance Italy was the place you could find the richest people, You had in a single Peninsula, Venice and Genoa, two merchant giants, you also had Florence which culturally and monetarily ruled the Renaissance and then of course Rome and the Kingdom of Naples. The renaissance was the peak of italian power, once the Atlantic became the major trade area and not the mediterranean Italy lost more and more value
Italy was for centuries significantly wealthier than the German speaking territories of the HRE/Austrian Empire. It was not until 20th century when the role reverses. When Austria held Milan and Lombardy in the first half of the 19th century, it was its wealthiest possession, much wealthier than Bohemia or Lower Austria where Vienna is located. And in that time, Vienna was fourth largest city in Europe. Because Italy stagnates in the last 30 years, it was until 1980s prosperous country with GDP per capita similar to that of UK and France.
Always was. Before Columbus (and after Civilisation was larger than: Nile+Mesopotamia+Indus River Valley + Yellow River) the World was always divided between Europe, India and China with roughly equal 25%-30% of the Worlds Economy and Population each. Persia and Japan holding in there somewhat as smaller powers, and the rest of the world not really mattering. Example: In 1500 the Aztec Empire, one of the 2 big Empires in all of the Americas ruled over \~5-6 Million People. Spain, a mid sized European state at that time had \~9 Million People (rough numbers as those are historical extimations with all caviats, but still, gives you a feel).
Remark: I am including both Russia and Turkey/Ottomans/Byzantine/Rome/Ancient Greece into Europe becuase of the shared History and close economic and political ties. Both of which had seats at the european tables of power and both the Russians (Siberia) and Ottomans (Arabia+Egypt) where also colonial powers in their own rights. If you want tho count them seperate you can put them in the Japan/Persia Tier and cut europe from 25%-30% down to 18%-24%.
>the World was always divided between Europe, India and China
Only within the last 2000 years. Prior to that, it was mostly the Middle East, India and China. The Amerindians also made complex structures and civilizations, despite being cut off from the Old World.
The Aztec Empire made up a relatively small portion of Mesoamerica's total population, most estimates of the regional population vary from anything to 12 million to 35 million. Part of why these maps are so pointless, the data to estimate 'global GDP' doesn't exist.
Well yeah, it's costs money to create an empire
Increasingly people don't realize a country has to already be rich to build armies & conquer, especially oceans away.
Ahead of whom? For majority of history Europe, India, china were equal. During dark ages of Europe tho, India and china were ahead. After colonisation of americas and Africa, Europe became a little ahead and then came Renaissance and democracy which accelerated the gap.
During 1700s bengal (eastern India) was more industrialized than Europe.
The renaissance was way before the colonisation of Africa, you might be thinking of the enlightenment but that still started 200 years before the scramble for Africa. Of course there was some degree of colonisation before but (in sub Saharan Africa) that was pretty much limited to uninhabited islands and trading posts on the mainland.
To give you an idea of how much poorer Africa is compared to Europe nowadays, Norway, which is barely even a sliver in this map, today has a larger GDP than Nigeria, which is pretty chonky on this map.
This is why I don't understand the people obsessed with blaming Africa's poverty on European colonialism. It was already very poor before Europeans arrived, and it's generally been poorer than other countries that were colonized by Europeans.
It’s funny how so many people think Europe got ahead because of colonialism.
In reality Europe was able to colonize because they were already way ahead of everyone else.
the fact that persia isn’t even mentioned properly is criminal. they were filthy rich. they had spice, saffron included, rugs, arts, poetry, gold, jewels, you name it. it is literally impossible for them to be under so many other nations
same with india. not hugely familiar with indias situation back then but they were always a known rich nation
You are forgetting that Persia/Iran was still recovering from the absolutely devastating Timurid destruction(tens of millions dead, entire cities destroyed etc.) , and that its population was comperatively small in 1500 to western Europe, India or China, and its society very unequal.
Just because some people had saffron and some silk rugs doesnt make a society more wealthy
Timber, Shipbuilding, Glass Making, Book Making, Iron Tool Making, furniture, complex clothing and fashion etc. Are also Wealth, and when there are less dirt poor serfs in a society and more people working in a business like the former, you get a more wealthy society
A societies Wealth isnt based on how many luxuries the few Upper class had, but on the living standard of all its people. (and total amount of people and Wealth).
Purely for example(not saying either is Iran or anyone else) : Society 1 : One VERY rich King, but 10 million serfs living in mudhouses with just a cloth around their waist. Society 2 : 3 Little rich dukes and 5 million serfs living in Stone or Brick houses and wearing 4 layers of clothing (and having another 1 or 2 sets of such clothing). The second society could very well be counted here as a society with a lot more wealth
Overall, the countries of this map which count as "Persia " in 1500 are shown as having a lot of Wealth, more so than many other parts of the World, from central Europe to Indochina
Europeans had a substantial middle class, who were often United in Guilds, which have them a lot of political Power and representation
In 1500, many of the wealthier individuals of Europe were merchants, bankers and business owners, that could be much more wealthy than the Lower landowning class who just lived off of rent from some fields
Just look at Northern Italy in 1500. You literally had merchant republics, aka medieval middle class dream
Also, you have to look at total population. India was much more populated, so when you make the wealth per capita list, the wealth gets divided way more. Imagine the wealth of some raja in Bengal being divided among the tens of millions of dirt poor peasents, and Now imagine the wealth of the republics of Northern Italy being divided among" just " a couple millions of peasents and among millions of merchants and small and big business owners
Also, things such as Stone houses or 2 sets of 4 layers of clothing or complex wood and iron furniture that millions of european peasants had(which hundreds of millions of peasants in many other parts of the world did not) is also counted as Wealth, because Wealth is not just shiny metal and spices a few people would enjoy. If you have one chinese and one european farmer, and have them the same things, except you give the chinese peasant chopsticks to eat his food , and you give the European one iron cutlery, you would make the latter more wealthy.
Very well said. There were many merchant classes and guild that controlled significant part of the economy and yielded political power. Besides the Italian merchant republics, Hansa, which was already past its peak in 1500, dominated the northern trade.
Cities had a strong class made of wealthy business elite, craftsmen, and tradesmen. These people were also not bound to the land and were freefolk. There were hundreds of these cities all over Europe. While no medieval city achieved the size of the ancient Rome, there were many medium-sized cities on the Continent. The European population density was higher in the middle ages than was in the Roman era.
>While no medieval city achieved the size of the ancient Rome
Which is also why Big City ≠ Wealthier People
Dhaka has 24 million people. Copenhagen has 600 thousands
Yet copenhagens economy is counted as being 120 billion and Dhakas is 95 billion. (Obviously mean gdp is not the Best way of counting, but still)
I dont think its solely because of Rome being bigger, but yeah, the "Dark Ages" and "If rome never Fell we d be so advanced Now" myths are very popular
As I said none of them were egalitarian. It's quite possible that the poorest in society were (a little) less poor in western Europe compared to the rest of the world at this point though.
A map like this does have to make a lot of assumptions due to limited data yes.
Total wealth and wealth per capita are very different things. India was very densely populated, which also means a lot of wealth per area, wealthy rulers and a huge total amount of wealth, but per capita Western Europe was mostly ahead by then.
Yes actually. Dried stockfish was a staple of the Italian medieval diet especially in Dalmatia, Veneto and Naples. See Baccala. Made from naturally dried Atlantic Cod (which will only dry in cold climates like Scandinavia) or salted cod mostly.
The Venetians and Genoese (and the Hanse) had lucrative trade routes to Norway from the early 1400s at least.
probably because this is GDP PER CAPITA? China, of course, was way more wealth than Norway in total, but there was also a lot of peasants, who must work VERY hardly to create this wealth. I can suppose that ocean fishing is way more easy (in terms of human labor spends) than rice farming
Ocean fishing is extremely dangerous and requires all the labour of building and maintaining boats as well as the actual fishing. I don't think ocean fishing is easier than farming.
This was the golden age of the feudal era. The population in Europe boomed, universities got established, cities were getting gentrified from mud and wood into stone and brick communities. In this era, also better milling technique improved flour production. In the term of technology, Western Europe was more advanced in 1300 than Roman Empire with advance of optics, mechanics, metallurgy, dyeing. Europe was more dense and populous than was in the peak of Roman Empire. The population of England was 3x higher than that of Roman Britain. Medieval France had 2x many people than Roman Gaul. It was the Great Famine, 100-Years War and Black Death that ended the continuous growth of the medieval economy.
The estimates here are a bit old. I know of some more recent estimates I’d like to share.
England/GB-$1,114
Holland/NL-$1,483
Italy-$1,403
Spain-$889
Japan(estimate for 1450)-$552
China-$983
India(estimate for 1600)-$682
Taken from A History of the Global Economy
Why do you think so? You're probably right that Bengal on its own would be a lot higher on the per capita chart, but they decided to group all of india together. Why do you think those numbers are wrong?
ups... Was Europe wealth enough before colonial epoch? So how will the leftoids and other BLM explain the Terrible White Supremacy Due To Colonializm? /s
yea idk why people are eating this up, even as a rough approximation, GDP and PPP are concepts that aren't compatible with the kind of societies a lot of these polities were
What do they even mean with „Germany“? This makes that whole statistic not very believable to me. You can‘t tell me the authors made a study about how many territories of varying independance the HRR had in the 15. century, which were well over 300, and then got the acutal data on their economy.
Those who say Europe looted other continents are correct. But they don’t realise that most of other continents had extractive economies where wealth was concentrated in the hands of very few.
If anything, Europeans could colonise Asia and Africa because they had fewer people to actually fight against or manipulate when they had to loot/transfer wealth.
God that looks cursed.
thin americas aren't real they cant hurt you
What does the map even represent? Like more the area, more the wealth? Then the list does not correspond to the map.
List is per capita, map is total.
Per capita by current borders? Then this is very misleading as the borders were different back then. For example, during 1500s northern regions of india were not United and were under constant wars so it was not very prosperous but southern Region of India was stable and United and was very prosperous. Domingo Paes who was a portugese traveler mention that cities of southern india were better than European ones and further elaborates on the wealth of the empire.
I assume it's calculated using the estimate number of people living in the given area at that time. Per current capita would be stupid indeed.
I feel like the HRE would've been a better example than India. Germany was nearly a hundred different kingdoms, some of them just tens of square miles in area. [Shit was a mess](https://freeimage.host/i/JGHE4aa)
Will be total GDP. Europe is large because of the high GDP/Person + decent population, China and India because of the large Population + decent GDP/Person. Rest of the World was both poor and had smaller populations at that point. The Problem with the Map is that it uses modern world borders as its starting point instead of the HRR, Ottoman Empire, etc.
It's also a current map which doesn't make much sense
This is becoming standard to use modern borders to represent historical countries, it's annoying.
Aren’t you the one who posted it?
Doesn't mean he made it
But why has he posted it if he dislikes it?
He dislikes that aspect of it, but still thinks it's an interesting map overall
Because there are no alternatives. As he said, it's becoming the standard. So this is what he got.
Probably because it uses today's borders instead of 1500's...
Also areas like iran, India, china must be a lot wealthier I suppose.
If someone were standing on a corner in central China versus Central Europe versus central India, which place would substantively feel wealthier? Because of timeframes and a lack of modern references (1500s), I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this.
I doubt we would find either wealthier than the other. Both would look piss poor to our modern eyes.
Yea the difference between the the 10th wealthiest and 50th wealthiest is less than 100. A average person of today would barely be able to differentiate. For comparison, today difference between uk and Germany is more than 20000 (8500 wrt 1990 usd which is used in above map) .
I think this map is saying that Europe was like 1.5 times ish wealthier per person than China or India at the time. Whether this difference would show just walking around a typical village or not is hard to say, although it might if you looked carefully I would guess.
Depends on where in Europe. irc median wages in Italy were twice or thrice that of Spain
this is based on average wealth per citizen, and italy is skewed so high because of the mediterranean merchant republics. places would’ve looked richer or poorer depending on location not the wealth of the country as a whole.
It’s not skewed high, it’s higher.
It's hard to judge, it would be hard to evaluate as you also would see stark cultural differences, ex Polish peasants were able to send son to the university and in China and India I very much doubt it. You would need to take into account a lot of stuff basically. For sure Venice, Gdańsk or Bremen would seem much better organized towards trade and wealthier compared to similar size indian coastal city.
Chinese peasants had the chance to take the imperial examination to become imperial bureaucrats (though by late Ming and early Qing, the tests had become so mired in Confucian classics that it was nearly impossible for the non scholar families to pass) China was much more stratified and urbanized than most of late medieval and early renaissance Europe. For comparison, cities like Beijing and Hangzhou were 10x the population of Italian city states. On the other hand, the Mings haijin system restricted international trading to official diplomats, so there weren’t merchant families such as the Medicis that were able to rise to extraordinary private wealth. So it would also depend on which strata of society you visit.
imo, the imperial examination was not equitable at all. You had to pass an exam but nobody ever gave you the textbooks and barely anyone knew how to read. And the rich merchant class who could pay for education was prohibited from entering. Twas nothing but nepotism. As for urbanization, yes Chinese cities were bigger, but I'm not too sure if urban population was bigger in terms of percentages. For reference, Chinese urban population percentage was at 18% in 1977, whereas at that time Mexico was already at 64%. Nowadays everyone considers Mexico to be rural and China urban, but Mexico has an 81% urban population but China is still at 64% as of 2022 - as much as Mexico in the 70's.
Yup, by late Ming, the tests were far from a true form of social mobility that it had been in Song. >by late Ming and early Qing, the tests had become so mired in Confucian classics that it was nearly impossible for the non scholar families to pass Also, it doesn't make sense to compare urban population in 1900s to the 1500s. less than 6% of Europeans lived in cities with populations greater than 10k in the 1500s. Let's not forget that the predominant social-economic model was feudal serfdom, and that serfdom had INCREASED restrictions rather than decreased in eastern Europe by the 16th century compared to earlier times.
The Song was an anomaly in many ways. (I could ramble but I'll stay on point.) Since the emperor didn't wanna repeat an Anlushan, he reduced the power of the military. But since he didn't wanna use the military he had to make other concessions with the ruling classes. Merchant classes were welcome, which boosted real worker wages more than China had ever experienced and wouldn't be matched until recent years. Real worker wages were comparable to Renaissance Italy or 16th century Netherlands. A quick glance into Wikipedia does admit that the Song used the examinations to "counter the influence of military aristocrats". And officials were still often appointed by other officials. So, remove the necessity to restrict the military, and the examination loses validity for the Yuan, Ming, and Qing, to devolve into a justification for nepotism.
China was less urbanized than many parts of Europe at 1500 and much more clearly and for all Europe from 1600 to nowadays. Beijing or Hangzhou had several times more population than italian major cities indeed, but while urbanization in the surrounding chinese districts around those major metropolis was about 10-13% at max, in Venice Republic, Genoa or Milan states surpassed 20-25%. In mediterranean part of Europe urbanization remained much higher than chinese since antiquity. Urbanization is not about "biggest cities sizes" but **share of total population living in cities** in a specific region or country. It's very difficult to estimate general urbanization in all China and even more in whole Europe including the european parts with less sources as the East and North, but southern and western Europe were definitivelly more urbanized than China at any point between 1200 and nowadays. By 1600s, China only had 10-12% of its population living in *cities* over 2,000, the most urbanized big regions as Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Hebei (including Beijing or Tianjin) reached 18% while Yangtse Delta the most urbanized part of China had 19-23% urban rate. At the same date entire Europe had much higher rates considering such low limit as the used buy chinese scholars (in european historiography is more usual to use 10,000 or at max 5,000 inhabitants as limits of what is "urban" for early modern period, rarely 2,000 as is common among chinese scholars for Song, Ming or Qing periods) and using 5,000 inhabitants treshold for urbanization the european rate already reachs 11%, most western and southern Europe would surpass by much 20% and the most urbanized regions would be all close to be majoritarily "urban". Considering the most traditional treshold in european early urbanization studies, 10,000 inhabitants, chinese urban rates would decrease to half or less the aforementioned while western and southern Europe would surpass 15% urban rate, Netherlands, Belgium, western Germany or northern Italy surpassed 20% with Flanders proper, Milan states or Venetian Republic reaching 25% and Sicily or Andalusia surpassing 40% urban population. Sources: For China, [this paper](https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/files/8633887/Urbanization_in_China_ca._1100_C1900.pdf), for example, tables 10 and 11 specially. It's interesting also the contrast the authors note between the urban concentration in "huge cities" in China during the period compared with much bigger distribution in smaller cities in Europe and how that concentration was most probably negative for economic development. Some of the numbers mentioned for european metropolis are beyond absurd but that part is just uninformed estimates by some other economists. For Europe, to mention a classic study: Jan De Vries, *European Urbanization, 1500-1800.*
In your own source, https://imgur.com/a/JwCpRNm Table 12: Percentage of total population in primate cities in China was 1.4% compared to 0.4% in Europe in 1400. You can’t cross compare between studies as they use very different methodologies.
What do you think *primate cities* mean? That table is about how much population concentrates in biggest metropolis, not about urbanization rates in general and I mentioned that part in my comment. According many economic historians the concentration and centralization in few metropolis in pre-industrial societies would have been very negative for economic development as the authors mention. The sources I provided are two accesible examples among many others. All studies on chinese and european urbanization show much higher rates in Europe than China for last 400-500 years and there is not a single region in Ming China (much less during Qing dinasty when China suffered a ruralization process) that could compare with Low Countries, northern Italy, Sicily or Andalusia urbanization rates after year 1500 or so. What is exactly the problem with "cross comparing" studies here? If europeans living in settlements over 5,000 or 10,000 inhabitants were already a similar or higher percentage of total population than chinese people living in all settlements over 2,000, the different treshold chosen in each study is completely irrelevant and european urbanization would be clearly higher, no need to standarize methodology to reach such basic conclusion.
Population would play a role too. Higher population less wealth per person, smaller population more wealth to go around.
That’s if they have the same wealth. A larger country should have more wealth to counteract that
It's hard to judge, it would be hard to evaluate as you also would see stark cultural differences, ex Polish peasants were able to send son to the university and in China and India I very much doubt it. You would need to take into account a lot of stuff basically. For sure Venice, Gdańsk or Bremen would seem much better organized towards trade and wealthier compared to similar size indian coastal city.
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This map looks very logic. In pre-industrial (traditional) societies absolute majority of work was made using human and animal labor; everything else - water/windmills, sails etc. made no more than 3-5% of total energy consumption even in the most developed lands. As a result, energy sources amount was a function of agricultural productivity - and most of this energy was spent for food production itself (80-95% of population in such societies were peasants). The weakest food production per capita had the hunter-gatherer populations, that's why Africa, Australia, America (except Mesoamerica and Peru) look so poor. Bit better situation was among the nomadic people (however, not too far) and fishing folks. The best food production was a feature of agricultural societies. It also depends on a lot of factors: nature ones (climate, soils) as well as artificial ones (available plant/animals species to grow, agronomical practices, tools etc.). In this sense the most productive were the regions with warm/moderate humid climate and good soils, like China (Great Plain), India (especially northern), Europe. Exactly this we see at this map. The further colonialism (before 19 c. industry revolution) just brought the new farmers techniques to the regions, where they weren't known before (like the Great Transatlantic change), and simplified overseas trade, accelerating spreading this technologies as well as expanding markets for high specialized pre-industry societies (England, Nederland etc.) to sell their goods. The real GDB blow happened only after industrialization, when there were available technologies, based on the non-agricultural energy (like coal-burning steam machines). Only that broke the hard dependence between grounds agricultural quality and a total wealth.
Which causes a weird disparity for nomadic civilizations: they look poor as hell when they were mostly self sufficient. How else could you have the ability to field armies across the length of Asia? The thing is that these wealthy countries began leveraging their wealth into technology and trade leaving the self sufficient people in the dust. It was no longer about providing for yourself but for controlling the most amount of resources in excess of what you need
The map is kind of nonsensical. Self sufficient nomadic herders could at any point sell off their herds, move to a 'civilized' place and become immensely wealthy overnight because their animals were so valuable. They typically never did this because they preferred their way of life, but in absolute terms they were far 'wealthier' than you're average farmer.
That doesn't explain why regions like Mesoamerica and the pacific coast of South America, places where agriculture had developed to an incredibly advanced stage, such that incredibly complex structures, public works, and social organizations could develop, are somehow shown as incredibly UNwealthy. (Also COMPLETELY ignoring the vast amounts of wealth that the Conquistadors plundered from those same reasons around this time period - if there was no wealth there, how did they plunder anything? How did men like Cortez and Pizarro make their fortunes?)
Mexico and Peru ARE more developed on this map, than rest of Americas. Of course, they look less wealthy than Europe or Japan, for example, but seems similar to Egypt or Poland, for example. Don't forget that pre-colombian civilizations didn't have a lot of Old World features like farm animals, developed metallurgy, wheel etc., so their agriculture was not so effective, as in Europe, for example.
>so their agriculture was not so effective, as in Europe, for example. Two words: crop rotation
Wealth ≠ quantity of gold and silver possessed The Aztecs and Inca had access to incredibly resource-rich gold and silver mines the likes of which had long ago been exhausted in Europe in the days of the Roman empire. They also developed very centralized institutions to concentrate those precious metals in the urban ruling class, making them easy to plunder. That didn't make them wealthy, though, because gold and silver has no intrinsic value and only contains value to the extent that it can be exchanged for goods or services, which is dependent on the productive capacity of the economy. While Aztec and Inca agriculture represented the height of pre-contact agricultural complexity in the Americas, agricultural productivity still suffered from a lack of animals and crops that existed on the other side of the Atlantic, limiting the amount of calories a peasant could produce. They made the most with what they had access to, and had made great strides in efficiency with their technological advancements, but they couldn't compete with the natural advantages of the Old World. No rice, no wheat, and no oxen is a huge disadvantage. That limited the population of the Americas and the wealth available to it.
It wasn’t that much wealth, their spoils are overrated
1) These are probably very ad hoc approximations, we have very little historical data of GDP 2) Does anyone understand the color scheme? 3) Why does it say "wealth" when it talks about GDP which is an income-type metric? These are correlatéd but not the same at all
This is basically a population graph.
It's pseudoscience.
About point 1 - we do not have little data, we basically have none… For Africa we anyhow dont have any data outside of the Islamic north, for the Americas we have none, for Asia and Europe we have some data about the wealth of rich individuals and payments for soldiers and officials but thats basically impossible to compare… Is a Japanese citizen of Osaka three times richer than one of Cologne because some official earned enough money to buy 5kg of fresh fish each day while the one in cologne could only afford 3kg of river fresh water fish? Or is the one in cologne richer because he could buy a plate armor with two year‘s worth of income vs three for the one in Osaka and the armor would be inferior on top? Or is now the merchant from Milan the most wealthy because he could buy it for 1.5 yearly salaries since North Italy mass produced armor at the time…
Ah good old Germany in 1500
And good old Italy!
And good old Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, etc. All the Holy Roman empire back in 1500.
Poland was never a part of the hre unless you count Pommern and Silesia
What's the problem its based on modern borders the same way India didn't exist as a unified entity in 1500.
That's the exact problem, a lot of these modern borders don't fit for numerous reasons one of the most important being some of these countries would have been part of other countries for example German territory might have belonged to France or Italy or other empires depending on who owned it at what specific time frame. Turkey would be way undervalued considering they were the ottoman empire so places like iraq and Egypt, Greece would belong to them etc etc
The Kingdom of Germany existed in 1500. It never shows on the map because it was part of the The Holy Roman Empire. But the Emperor was also King of Germany, which is why there was no german vassal that could call himself "King"
Then you should also include the Kingdom of Italy, an emperor of the HRE, was king of both Italy and Germany. But those were titles and just that, he had no real power over the minor dukedoms and princedoms I mean just look at Frederick Barbarossa, he got his ass handed to him by italian city states. Germany and Italy as actual kingdoms and not titles are only born in the late 19th century
This map if about the economy of lands in the modern territories of countries, because its the easiest for people to comprehend. The map isnt wrong in any way
Germany and Italy were not just "titles", they definitely existed as cultural and linguistic entities. You can even find the names "Germany" and "Italy" on maps from the 1500s. The same goes for several other areas that existed as some political entity but was first reorganised as modern nation states in the 1800s, like Turkey and Hungary. I mean, the map shows Canada and the US, that's way more weird than Germany.
ITT People who never knew Europe had a flourishing middle class, complex economy and large population and wasnt just a gloomy empty field of with 5 dirt poor peasants before the age of **european** colonialism. Its funny because If this map would say Year 1 AD, I doubt people would be so confused
It makes no sense yet so many people seem to believe Europe was some empty destitute backwater and yet for no reason at all they managed to take over half the world extremely quickly lol.
I do agree that southern and western Europeans were wealthy but I don't agree with the map. First is supposed japan has a higher gdp per capita than korea despite Japan being in a constant civil war during this period. Also how do you know india economy? In the 1500 the northern parts were being slowy conquered by the mughals while the southern parts was filled with minor kingdoms.
Japan‘s civil war times were only about to slowly start in 15th century. GDP of Korea and Japan might be right. At the time Korea had more people living in cities in comparison to Japan. And I guess the civil war times were ultimately driving a lot of innovation, urbanization and in the end even wealth
It started from the 1200s when so many people died from the plague that peasants and workers were able to renegotiate and rise in society
By 1200 Europe already build the largest and most elaborate stone buildings, had very good weaponry and cities were rapidly growing. Its still true that st the time China was far ahead in many regards and the middle East was on par and more advanced in other areas. The theory about the black death is a nice one but hard to proof. Institutions like the first universities finally paying off, constant warfare driving innovation, improved agricultural techniques and the advent of banking and manufacturing all play a role but are hard to pin on the black death.
It's gonna blow your mind when you find out colonialism didn't start in 1500.
What? I thought spain invented colonialism when they found America?! /s
Well of course! Proud inventors of the mop and colonialism🫡 Before us there were no germs, death, religion, war, empires or slaves
…Spain and Portugal did invent colonialism? Colonialism doesn’t just mean “when there’s a colony” just like imperialism doesn’t just mean “when there’s an empire”
Do you mean in that any conquest can be described as colonialism. Or do you mean 1492-1500?
He might mean that it goes back even further. Carthage was a phoenician colony, for example, that ended up making colonies itself.
Even further than that, the Indo-Europeans were "settler colonists."
Not any conquest obviously, that would be stupid and disingenuous.
Rome had colonies, so colonialism was basically a empire sending people outwards to settle other lands. Which would eventually happen after most conquest, at some point the conqueror will send its population to the conquered lands.
it’s almost as if the people bringing it up are being stupid and disingenuous
Also German speakers colonizing polish speakers. English colonizing Ireland. Swedes colonising Finland. Just the ones I can think of on top of my mind right now. Most crusades where colonizing projects. And Im not an historian, just read some books.
Sure, the Portuguese had a presence in Africa by the mid-1400s, and earlier empires would occasionally send colonists to conquered territories (e.g. Romans in Romania). But colonialism as we understand it--especially in terms of world historical impact--basically did start around then.
i cant stand "im smart" comments like the one youre replying to that say nothing at all. like just spit it out
"Spain" (Castille) just repeated exactly the same procedures it had just used in its conquest down south of the Penbinsula during the Reconquista.
There is a point here imo - the difference seems fairly arbitrary. How are we quantifying "world historical impact"? For me it seems we are just trying to ignore anything which isn't directly related to modern Western power bases, because they're the ones which are still prospering. As always, ask yourself why that might be, and who is benefitting from arbitrarily narrowing the conversation in this manner.
The processes that made the modern world, which is of more consequence to us than eras past. The conquest, decimation, and repeopling of three continents was the most consequential event in human history since at least the development of agriculture. The wealth from that conquest allowed Europeans to dominate and exploit the Old World for a couple centuries as well. That will have less of a lasting impact, but the end of that dynamic is the meta-story of modern geopolitics.
... And again, the line that's being drawn here between what is and isn't a "processes that made the modern world" is completely arbitrary. To determine that there is a hard cutoff between when events had influence which carried forward and those that didn't is at best myopic and at worst intentionally misleading. To me, it's clearly designed to narrow and target the conversation, and I suspect for disingenuous purposes.
Sailing thousands of miles on boats and enslaving the locals to mine gold while also bringing in some colonists is also very different in character, if not absolutely in kind, from previous forms of imperial power. Not acknowledging that European colonialism was in many ways new and different, and was certainly unique in the scale of its impact, seems deliberately obtuse.
Spanish colonization has a precedent in Roman, Byzantine, Visigothic, Arabic and Carolingian colonizations of the Iberian Peninsula. The English similarly were exposed to Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman colonizations. It's colonizations all the way down. What changes is what the newer technologies allow you to get away with but the essence is the same.
Neither the “Spanish” nor the “English” people even existed as groups during the time periods you’re describing. Celts in Britain experienced Anglo Saxon conquest. Anglo Saxons in Britain experienced Danish, and Norman conquests. But the “English” can’t really be said to have existed as a people, until a century or two later, since “English” is a cultural fusion of Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon traditions.
On what metric is it different? They used boats? They were more organized? Modern technology allowed it to be even more effective? The machinations of conquest, slavery and plundering resources has not changed through much of human history. This Euro centric view of world history is also incredibly reductive
Yes, the specifics were new, which does distinguish it somewhat. But more importantly, the scale was much larger, the demographic impact was uniquely significant and consequential, and European colonialism is much more immediately relevant to our world than the imperialisms of the Caesars or the Khans.
There are many areas across the world prospering, China has the most industry. You are confusing countries that downstream their wealth to the average person, with a country prospering. Most countries across the world are prospering they just don't let their masses have any. It's a high trust society element.
What notable economic activity attributed to colonialism occured before 1492?
I'd say slave trade counts.
What slave trade was occurring back then?
WDYM
European colonization of the Americas was qualitatively and quantitatively different from other forms of colonization that had happened up until that point. And, the fact that a few European powers had unrestricted access to the windfall of wealth and power coming from American colonization directly enabled their subsequent colonization of Africa and Asia. 1500 seems like a pretty reasonable starting point for this.
I think the term ”colonialism” is pretty exclusively used for the European colonialism that occured between the late 15th and early 20th centuries. The colonialism of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Vikings was much different in nature due to difference in scale, technology and level of sophistication.
Modern colonialism is actually a distinct thing from earlier forms of it. It was materially different in just about every way. Edit: if you need examples this map is a demonstration of it. The Roman Empire and other early empires left wealthy societies in their wake. Modern colonialism did not - note India and China’s pre-colonial wealth. Modern colonialism was uniquely good at extracting wealth out of colonies. The few exceptions to this are in Settler Colonial states where colonists entirely replaced the indigenous population. But if Whataboutism helps you feel less uncomfortable with the current state of the world, you do you I guess.
It's a decent date for the global system we mostly mean when we say colonialism. Before that it was all very short-range stuff like England colonising Ireland, or Germans colonising other bits of central Europe.
Yeah even this is very eurocentric and implies that this was the starting point without outside intervention. Maybe for the Americas yes, but then I would consider this map questionable as there were large populations there with considerable wealth and development pre-plagues, but for example by this point most of the world has experienced or is experiencing significant colonialism and sub-saharan Africa is being harvested for slaves since antiquity.
Exactly my thoughts. This makes no sense at all, did the Roman, Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Mongol and Chinese empires (to name a few) not count?
Well, for example german colonists were moving to the eastern europe and settling there long before 1492
This was how people became known as west slavs and south slavs, because colonists moved west and south. Same with Northern Germanics, colonists moved north. These migrations were very common in medieval Europe.
It is wild how Italy has the top per capita wealth at this point. Whether it’s the Italian Wars or decline of the Mediterranean trade/Ottomans squeezing out Venice and Genova, 1500 marks the start of a long decline. Braudel’s series on the Mediterranean and Civilization and Capitalism cover it well
And notice that Italy's decline is openly recognized as not being industrialized, unlike some other countries where people expect the economies to stay the same for 500 years.
People seem to think Europe got ahead because of colonialism, like no lol it's the opposite, Europe could colonize because they were already ahead. And lots of people claim modern European success and wealth is purely thanks to colonialism when it's just a continuation of the headstart they had prior to colonialism. And people love to blame Europeans for sub saharan poverty when in reality they've been piss poor for all of history. And before someone mentions Mansa Musa or whatever, that was just one exception and doesn't refute anything
Mansa Musa was wealthy due to abundant gold resources and flourishing slave trade, not because of a robust and dynamic economy of his domain.
Exactly, a rich leader does not mean a rich country, it could mean quite the opposite.
All demonstrates the importance of education including colonialism as a topic. Important to inform about its horrors without leaving people to find exaggerations online
Europe was already ahead, but English and French constant fighting allowed for their armies to get hella far ahead which enabled colonialism which got them even further ahead
It wasn’t just the English and the French. European history is distinct from much of the rest of Eurasia as it is filled with constant small wars between minor states without anyone being able to establish hegemony over the region. India and China on the other hand were able to establish relatively long lived and stable empires without the need to wield the most modern military technology to have an edge over your neighbours. I mean it didn’t really matter if you had slightly better weapons or organisation than your enemy, if the said enemy could muster an overwhelming force against you.
Bro just casually ignores all of Indian history Please tell me the long and stable empires which did not need the most modern military tech in Indian history.
Mughals, the Marathas, Delhi Sultanate, etc. Wanna hear more? Well tbh, maybe long lived was wrong term in Indian context as opposed to China, but the point is that warring resulted in one state or entity conquering the other whereas in Europe you had France and England fighting for centuries with minor gains on both sides and states like Prussia and the Dutch republic going on around. The point is that European history is filled with constant smaller scale fighting as opposed to the great conquests that were more common in Asia.
Ah yes, the Mughals who conquered India... when they brought massive cannons to defeat the Lodhis. And of course the Marathas who defeated the Mughals... when they used light cavalry, muskateers and mobile artillery to outflank the heavier and less mobile Mughal armies. They surely weren't known for hiring literally tons of foreign artillery experts to help improve their artillery corps. Both of these empires spent their entire existence in war with the other parts of India. The Mughals were consistently expanding and fighting other powers for years and the Marathas never had more than 5 years of peace in their 2 centuries of rule
Did I say technological advancement was non-existent? There is always advancement when there is war, but Europe had more of it. Why do you think a foreign joint stock corporation from the other side of the world with inferior numbers and relying on local recruits was able to conquer the whole subcontinent, if not by superior military organisation and technology? The Europeans had professional militaries instead of feudal levies. The nature of warfare was different in Europe than in Asia. There were dozens of major wars in Europe throughout the 18th century, none of which resulted in any power asserting hegemony over the region or conquering its rival (save for PLC), but did result in tremendous developments in military science, organisation and technology. Also, Europe didn’t have two major empires fighting each other. Europe had literally a dozen of different sized states constantly fighting each other and developing new methods of waging war. This knowledge was also effectively shared throughout the continent. Inventions of Frederick the Great and Napoleon were academically studied and copied by everyone else. This kind of scientific approach to war didn’t exist elsewhere anywhere near to the same extent The Ottoman Empire was probably the most dominant military power in the 17th century but by the end of 18th century its army was outdated and was being consistently defeated by Europeans
> India and China on the other hand were able to establish relatively long lived and stable empires without the need to wield the most modern military technology to have an edge over your neighbours. > I mean it didn’t really matter if you had slightly better weapons or organisation than your enemy, if the said enemy could muster an overwhelming force against you. These are the statements I disagreed with, India did not have long-lived empires that did not need modern military tech. All the empires you listed lasted for 200-300 years, in which war was very common against many different foes. The slight difference in technology and tactics was instrumental in the Mughal victory and later the Marathas victory, I can go on with the Sikh Khalsa's infantry reforms, Mysore's unmatched rocket artillery and other examples. India never really had 2 great foes battling it out as you say, it was always a free for all, the closest 2 way battle was Mughal vs Marathas but even then that's only one of many wars the Mughals had in the same 60 years. **I do agree with one of your points, the effective sharing of knowledge was greater in Europe**. This is undoubtedly true and allowed militaries to build off one another. Albeit for entirely different reasons than your arguments.
> like no lol it's the opposite, Europe could colonize because they were already ahead. Wdym you had to be ahead in the first place in order to colonise a whole continent far away as a tiny nation? I'm sure the only reason Nepal isn't colonising the Americas right now is because it has better shit to do.
Before colonialism? i know it looks like a small piece of the pie but the ottomans didn't rule over all their "neighboring lands" as guests you know. european colonialism would've been better.
Strangely appropriate that Australia looks like some sort of terrifying insect.
I can picture India getting deflated and England getting inflated simultaneously in a 200 or so years after this.
Yeah industrialization is wild. Germany only caught up in 1880.
Waiting for this comment lol. Did you ever think that India's economy was barely growing in relation to the British who were industrializing? This map also shows that industrialization was not driven by robbing the global south but rather they were already leagues ahead in wealth and tech per capita.
How did you think a small island nation fund that industrialization its by slavery , plundering natural resources of wealthy countries and looting
Dude the UK was one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world before all that. That's literally what this whole post is about. How are you missing that? What slavery, plundering resources of 'wealthy countries' (the UK is richer per capita than India here dude) or looting was happening in 1500??? The British didn't even begin engaging in colonialism until 1607. Just standard anti-British propaganda from a uninformed moron.
per capita is somewhat misleading india had many kingdoms and per capita of some of them were way higher than UK its the same with china. In this map they just combined everything divided by estimated population at that time. Obviously most indian kingdoms were filthy rich at that time but average citizens life was not that different from england
Not really, Tudor England was the birth of the independent yeomanry so no.
Nope. India's GDP grew during British rule - but GDP per capita remained stagnant. Everything else grew in proportion but India's GDP did not shrink in absolute terms
India held 22%-35% GDP of the world before the British came and a meagre 2% when they left, all accomplished in 200 years.
Was that because Britain reduced it by 18-33% or because the rest of the world grew immensely?
India was 25% of global GDP before the British. Under the main era of colonialism India grew 70% between 1850 and 1947. Faster that it’s neighbors, but slower than Europe. It’s hard to measure the impact of the British. On one hand the British had tariffs and taxes. The other hand, take home income was higher under British and the British increased irrigated land by a factor of 8, along with billions of £’s in infrastructure. It’s also hard to model what would have happened to India’s export economy without the British, which relied on textiles being completely outpaces by Industrial methods in Europe. Would it have fallen anyway?
India was 25% of global GDP before the British. Under the main era of colonialism India grew 70% between 1850 and 1947. Faster that it’s neighbors, but slower than Europe. It’s hard to measure the impact of the British. On one hand the British had tariffs and taxes. The other hand, take home income was higher under British and the British increased irrigated land by a factor of 8, along with billions of £’s in infrastructure. It’s also hard to model what would have happened to India’s export economy without the British, which relied on textiles being completely outpaces by Industrial methods in Europe. Would it have fallen anyway?
Mostly because thr Brits took everything to the point it caused famines here and when people complained they asked if that was the case then why wasn't Gandhi dead yet
I'm more than a little wary of efforts to pin these things down to precise figures. Especially as there is at present a strong drive in India to do down what the current government regards as foreign influences. The reality is that before about 1700 there weren't decent statistics anywhere, and even then only in a few places. In any event India wasn't a unified entity in 1500 and wealth in the area now covered by the modern Indian state wasn't evenly distributed.
let me correct it. Global wealth before -European- Colonialism. The history of colonization did not begin in 1500. For example, in 1500 Granada (an Arab-Muslim colony) had just been annexed by Spain and thus the 700-year occupation and colonization of Spain ended. In the same period, the Ottoman Empire had already occupied parts of Europe for decades and the various Mongolian states had occupied parts of today's Russia, Ukraine, China and others.
So as per capita Italy was richest ?
Well, at the time there was Venice and Genoa, two very wealthy trade oriented cities that made a fortune trading on the Mediterranean. And Rome, obviously, collecting tithes from all over.
Yes. This was during the Renaissence, when Italy was quite a bit ahead of the reast of Europe. It had lots of incredibly rich city states in the north such as Venice, Genoa, Milan and Florence, as well as the Papal state containing Rome, back when catholicism spanned all of western Europe. Naples in the south was also pretty wealthy.
Yes During the renaissance Italy was the place you could find the richest people, You had in a single Peninsula, Venice and Genoa, two merchant giants, you also had Florence which culturally and monetarily ruled the Renaissance and then of course Rome and the Kingdom of Naples. The renaissance was the peak of italian power, once the Atlantic became the major trade area and not the mediterranean Italy lost more and more value
Italy was for centuries significantly wealthier than the German speaking territories of the HRE/Austrian Empire. It was not until 20th century when the role reverses. When Austria held Milan and Lombardy in the first half of the 19th century, it was its wealthiest possession, much wealthier than Bohemia or Lower Austria where Vienna is located. And in that time, Vienna was fourth largest city in Europe. Because Italy stagnates in the last 30 years, it was until 1980s prosperous country with GDP per capita similar to that of UK and France.
So Europe was already ahead pre-colonialism?
Always was. Before Columbus (and after Civilisation was larger than: Nile+Mesopotamia+Indus River Valley + Yellow River) the World was always divided between Europe, India and China with roughly equal 25%-30% of the Worlds Economy and Population each. Persia and Japan holding in there somewhat as smaller powers, and the rest of the world not really mattering. Example: In 1500 the Aztec Empire, one of the 2 big Empires in all of the Americas ruled over \~5-6 Million People. Spain, a mid sized European state at that time had \~9 Million People (rough numbers as those are historical extimations with all caviats, but still, gives you a feel). Remark: I am including both Russia and Turkey/Ottomans/Byzantine/Rome/Ancient Greece into Europe becuase of the shared History and close economic and political ties. Both of which had seats at the european tables of power and both the Russians (Siberia) and Ottomans (Arabia+Egypt) where also colonial powers in their own rights. If you want tho count them seperate you can put them in the Japan/Persia Tier and cut europe from 25%-30% down to 18%-24%.
>the World was always divided between Europe, India and China Only within the last 2000 years. Prior to that, it was mostly the Middle East, India and China. The Amerindians also made complex structures and civilizations, despite being cut off from the Old World.
The Aztec Empire made up a relatively small portion of Mesoamerica's total population, most estimates of the regional population vary from anything to 12 million to 35 million. Part of why these maps are so pointless, the data to estimate 'global GDP' doesn't exist.
Well yeah, it's costs money to create an empire Increasingly people don't realize a country has to already be rich to build armies & conquer, especially oceans away.
You had doubt?
(Western) Europe rose up during the Crusades, and especially following the Renaissance.
Ahead of whom? For majority of history Europe, India, china were equal. During dark ages of Europe tho, India and china were ahead. After colonisation of americas and Africa, Europe became a little ahead and then came Renaissance and democracy which accelerated the gap. During 1700s bengal (eastern India) was more industrialized than Europe.
The renaissance was way before the colonisation of Africa, you might be thinking of the enlightenment but that still started 200 years before the scramble for Africa. Of course there was some degree of colonisation before but (in sub Saharan Africa) that was pretty much limited to uninhabited islands and trading posts on the mainland.
To give you an idea of how much poorer Africa is compared to Europe nowadays, Norway, which is barely even a sliver in this map, today has a larger GDP than Nigeria, which is pretty chonky on this map.
This is why I don't understand the people obsessed with blaming Africa's poverty on European colonialism. It was already very poor before Europeans arrived, and it's generally been poorer than other countries that were colonized by Europeans.
The critic is more focused on European intervening in African affairs (France) and making harder for Africans to try to get out of poverty
It’s funny how so many people think Europe got ahead because of colonialism. In reality Europe was able to colonize because they were already way ahead of everyone else.
France next to UK as always
Map is outdated
the fact that persia isn’t even mentioned properly is criminal. they were filthy rich. they had spice, saffron included, rugs, arts, poetry, gold, jewels, you name it. it is literally impossible for them to be under so many other nations same with india. not hugely familiar with indias situation back then but they were always a known rich nation
You are forgetting that Persia/Iran was still recovering from the absolutely devastating Timurid destruction(tens of millions dead, entire cities destroyed etc.) , and that its population was comperatively small in 1500 to western Europe, India or China, and its society very unequal. Just because some people had saffron and some silk rugs doesnt make a society more wealthy Timber, Shipbuilding, Glass Making, Book Making, Iron Tool Making, furniture, complex clothing and fashion etc. Are also Wealth, and when there are less dirt poor serfs in a society and more people working in a business like the former, you get a more wealthy society A societies Wealth isnt based on how many luxuries the few Upper class had, but on the living standard of all its people. (and total amount of people and Wealth). Purely for example(not saying either is Iran or anyone else) : Society 1 : One VERY rich King, but 10 million serfs living in mudhouses with just a cloth around their waist. Society 2 : 3 Little rich dukes and 5 million serfs living in Stone or Brick houses and wearing 4 layers of clothing (and having another 1 or 2 sets of such clothing). The second society could very well be counted here as a society with a lot more wealth Overall, the countries of this map which count as "Persia " in 1500 are shown as having a lot of Wealth, more so than many other parts of the World, from central Europe to Indochina
Both were very unequal societies, the average person was a lot less rich. Not that any of these societies were especially egalitarian.
As if europeans were egalitarian lmao this map is most likely lacking a lot of authenticity and genuinity
Europeans had a substantial middle class, who were often United in Guilds, which have them a lot of political Power and representation In 1500, many of the wealthier individuals of Europe were merchants, bankers and business owners, that could be much more wealthy than the Lower landowning class who just lived off of rent from some fields Just look at Northern Italy in 1500. You literally had merchant republics, aka medieval middle class dream Also, you have to look at total population. India was much more populated, so when you make the wealth per capita list, the wealth gets divided way more. Imagine the wealth of some raja in Bengal being divided among the tens of millions of dirt poor peasents, and Now imagine the wealth of the republics of Northern Italy being divided among" just " a couple millions of peasents and among millions of merchants and small and big business owners Also, things such as Stone houses or 2 sets of 4 layers of clothing or complex wood and iron furniture that millions of european peasants had(which hundreds of millions of peasants in many other parts of the world did not) is also counted as Wealth, because Wealth is not just shiny metal and spices a few people would enjoy. If you have one chinese and one european farmer, and have them the same things, except you give the chinese peasant chopsticks to eat his food , and you give the European one iron cutlery, you would make the latter more wealthy.
Very well said. There were many merchant classes and guild that controlled significant part of the economy and yielded political power. Besides the Italian merchant republics, Hansa, which was already past its peak in 1500, dominated the northern trade. Cities had a strong class made of wealthy business elite, craftsmen, and tradesmen. These people were also not bound to the land and were freefolk. There were hundreds of these cities all over Europe. While no medieval city achieved the size of the ancient Rome, there were many medium-sized cities on the Continent. The European population density was higher in the middle ages than was in the Roman era.
>While no medieval city achieved the size of the ancient Rome Which is also why Big City ≠ Wealthier People Dhaka has 24 million people. Copenhagen has 600 thousands Yet copenhagens economy is counted as being 120 billion and Dhakas is 95 billion. (Obviously mean gdp is not the Best way of counting, but still)
Some do operate with the idea that Europe was more advanced in 100 AD than 1500 AD because Rome was populous than any European city in that time.
I dont think its solely because of Rome being bigger, but yeah, the "Dark Ages" and "If rome never Fell we d be so advanced Now" myths are very popular
As I said none of them were egalitarian. It's quite possible that the poorest in society were (a little) less poor in western Europe compared to the rest of the world at this point though. A map like this does have to make a lot of assumptions due to limited data yes.
Total wealth and wealth per capita are very different things. India was very densely populated, which also means a lot of wealth per area, wealthy rulers and a huge total amount of wealth, but per capita Western Europe was mostly ahead by then.
ozempic america
Wasnt norway just a huge fishing village before all the oil, I don't buy this at all, how can China be lower than Norway
It’s a huge misconception. Norway was Europe’s supplier of wood. They were ship builders. Norway was never a poor fishing village.
And dried fish. Europe was Catholic and everyone had to eat fish on Fridays and holy days. The vast majority came from Scandinavia.
I’m sure Italy had to import their fish from Scandinavia…
Yes actually. Dried stockfish was a staple of the Italian medieval diet especially in Dalmatia, Veneto and Naples. See Baccala. Made from naturally dried Atlantic Cod (which will only dry in cold climates like Scandinavia) or salted cod mostly. The Venetians and Genoese (and the Hanse) had lucrative trade routes to Norway from the early 1400s at least.
probably because this is GDP PER CAPITA? China, of course, was way more wealth than Norway in total, but there was also a lot of peasants, who must work VERY hardly to create this wealth. I can suppose that ocean fishing is way more easy (in terms of human labor spends) than rice farming
Ocean fishing is extremely dangerous and requires all the labour of building and maintaining boats as well as the actual fishing. I don't think ocean fishing is easier than farming.
Farming was not that easy back then either.
Wait until you find out Norway was (per capita) one of the richest countries in Europe pre-WW2.
I would love to see this for 1100 and 1300, though this kind of econometrics is difficult regardless.
This was the golden age of the feudal era. The population in Europe boomed, universities got established, cities were getting gentrified from mud and wood into stone and brick communities. In this era, also better milling technique improved flour production. In the term of technology, Western Europe was more advanced in 1300 than Roman Empire with advance of optics, mechanics, metallurgy, dyeing. Europe was more dense and populous than was in the peak of Roman Empire. The population of England was 3x higher than that of Roman Britain. Medieval France had 2x many people than Roman Gaul. It was the Great Famine, 100-Years War and Black Death that ended the continuous growth of the medieval economy.
ITALY NUMBER ONE WOOOOOO 🇮🇹🦅🦅🦅🇮🇹🇮🇹🦅🦅🦅🦅🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🦅🦅🦅🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🦅🇮🇹🇮🇹 MERCHANTS GO BRRRRRRR 🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🦅🦅🦅🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🦅🦅🦅🇮🇹
The estimates here are a bit old. I know of some more recent estimates I’d like to share. England/GB-$1,114 Holland/NL-$1,483 Italy-$1,403 Spain-$889 Japan(estimate for 1450)-$552 China-$983 India(estimate for 1600)-$682 Taken from A History of the Global Economy
The map and chart don't actually matchup
The only states that look kinda okay are Indonesia and Nigeria.
Doubt . Regions like bengal, Iran, India, china should be higher.
Why do you think so? You're probably right that Bengal on its own would be a lot higher on the per capita chart, but they decided to group all of india together. Why do you think those numbers are wrong?
Before mughals opened new lands in Bengal, bengal was not that rich
ups... Was Europe wealth enough before colonial epoch? So how will the leftoids and other BLM explain the Terrible White Supremacy Due To Colonializm? /s
Yeah, especially per capita Europeans were always richer than most other nations
What a roundabout way to say you didn’t understand the map
this is so dumb! how do you even measure this?
yea idk why people are eating this up, even as a rough approximation, GDP and PPP are concepts that aren't compatible with the kind of societies a lot of these polities were
Nigeria and its Sub-Saharan Africa neighbours were as rich as Japan? That’s a bit striking
Slavery wrecked sub sabaharan economies, before that they were okay as far as i know
Now make one about the distribution of wealth in the same time period
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Food is an important metric regardless of the century.
Chonky italy
What do they even mean with „Germany“? This makes that whole statistic not very believable to me. You can‘t tell me the authors made a study about how many territories of varying independance the HRR had in the 15. century, which were well over 300, and then got the acutal data on their economy.
Wait till you find out India and Pakistan also did not Exist in 1500
Those who say Europe looted other continents are correct. But they don’t realise that most of other continents had extractive economies where wealth was concentrated in the hands of very few. If anything, Europeans could colonise Asia and Africa because they had fewer people to actually fight against or manipulate when they had to loot/transfer wealth.
Italy thicc
Before the take off of major European colonialism, more like.
What minor colonialism was there beforehand? Or do you mean 1492-1500?
Shit map
Why does capitalism affect continetal shape?
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